title: Analysis of expressed sequence tags from the wheat leaf blotch pathogen Mycosphaerella graminicola (anamorph Septoria tritici).
abstract: Mycosphaerella graminicola is a major fungal pathogen of wheat as the causal agent of Septoria leaf blotch disease. As a first step toward a greater understanding of the mechanism of host infection we have generated, sequenced, and analyzed three M. graminicola EST libraries from conditions predicted to resemble independent phases of the host infection process, including one library generated from the fungus during interaction with its host. A total of 5180 ESTs were sequenced and clustered into 886 contigs and 2039 singletons to give a set of 2925 unique sequences (unisequences). BLASTX analysis revealed 33% of the unknown M. graminicola unisequences to be orphans. Very limited inter-library overlap of expression was seen with the majority of unisequences (contigs and singletons) being library-specific. Analysis of EST redundancy between libraries demonstrated a significant difference in gene expression in the three conditions. Comparisons made against fully sequenced genomes revealed most M. graminicola sequences to be homologous to genes present in both pathogenic and non-pathogenic Ascomycete filamentous fungi. A range of sequences having significant homology to verified pathogenicity/virulence genes (HvPV-genes) of either plant or mammalian fungal and Oomycete pathogens were also identified (<1e-20). The generation of, and the diversity present within, this EST collection will facilitate future efforts aimed at a more detailed study of the transcriptome of the fungus during host infection.
authors.affiliation: Wheat Pathogenesis Programme, Plant-Pathogen Interactions Division, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts AL5 2JQ, UK.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Keon
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Antoniw
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rudd
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Skinner
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hargreaves
authors.forename: Kim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hammond-Kosack
mesh_terms: D001203:Ascomycota / Q000235:genetics* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D020451:Contig Mapping; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D015966:Gene Expression Regulation, Fungal; D015723:Gene Library; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000382:microbiology; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017385:Sequence Homology; D037521:Virulence Factors / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D037521:Virulence Factors