Chloramphenicol inhibits eukaryotic Ser/Thr phosphatase and infection-specific cell differentiation in the rice blast fungus.

Chloramphenicol (Cm) is a broad-spectrum classic antibiotic active against prokaryotic organisms. However, Cm has severe side effects in eukaryotes of which the cause remains unknown. The plant pathogenic fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, which causes rice blast, forms an appressorium to infect the host cell via single-cell differentiation. Chloramphenicol specifically inhibits appressorium formation, which indicates that Cm has a novel molecular target (or targets) in the rice blast fungus. Application of the T7 phage display method inferred that MoDullard, a Ser/Thr-protein phosphatase, may be a target of Cm. In animals Dullard functions in cell differentiation and protein synthesis, but in fungi its role is poorly understood. In vivo and in vitro analyses showed that MoDullard is required for appressorium formation, and that Cm can bind to and inhibit MoDullard function. Given that human phosphatase CTDSP1 complemented the MoDullard function during appressorium formation by M. oryzae, CTDSP1 may be a novel molecular target of Cm in eukaryotes.

Single crossover-mediated targeted nucleotide substitution and knock-in strategies with CRISPR/Cas9 system in the rice blast fungus.

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9)-mediated genome editing has become a promising approach for efficient and versatile genetic engineering in various organisms; however, simple and precise nucleotide modification methods in filamentous fungi have been restricted to double crossover type homologous recombination (HR). In this study, we developed a novel genome editing strategy via single crossover-mediated HR in the model filamentous fungus Pyricularia (Magnaporthe) oryzae. This method includes the CRISPR/Cas9 system and a donor vector harboring a single homology arm with point mutations at the CRISPR/Cas9 cleavage site. Using this strategy, we demonstrated highly efficient and freely programmable base substitutions within the desired genomic locus, and target gene disrupted mutants were also obtained via a shortened (100-1000 bp) single homology arm. We further demonstrated that this method allowed a one-step GFP gene knock-in at the C-terminus of the targeted gene. Since the genomic recombination does not require an intact protospacer-adjacent motif within the donor construct and any additional modifications of host components, this method can be used in various filamentous fungi for CRISPR/Cas9-based basic and applied biological analyses.

Chitin-deacetylase activity induces appressorium differentiation in the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae.

The rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae differentiates a specialized infection structure called an appressorium to invade rice cells. In this report, we show that CBP1, which encodes a chitin-deacetylase, is involved in the induction phase of appressorium differentiation. We demonstrate that the enzymatic activity of Cbp1 is critical for appressorium formation. M. oryzae has six CDA homologues in addition to Cbp1, but none of these are indispensable for appressorium formation. We observed chitosan localization at the fungal cell wall using OGA488. This observation suggests that Cbp1-catalysed conversion of chitin into chitosan occurs at the cell wall of germ tubes during appressorium differentiation by M. oryzae. Taken together, our results provide evidence that the chitin deacetylase activity of Cbp1 is necessary for appressorium formation.