Molecular Plant Pathology (2018) 19, 677-688

Francesca Spanu, Barbara Scherm, Irene Camboni, Virgilio Balmas, Giovanna Pani, Safa Oufensou, Nicolo' Macciotta, Matias Pasquali and Quirico Migheli (2018)
FcRav2, a gene with a ROGDI domain involved in Fusarium head blight and crown rot on durum wheat caused by Fusarium culmorum
Molecular Plant Pathology 19 (3), 677-688
Abstract: Fusarium culmorum is a soil-borne fungal pathogen which causes foot and root rot and Fusarium head blight on small-grain cereals, in particular wheat and barley. It causes significant yield and quality losses and results in the contamination of kernels with type B trichothecene mycotoxins. Our knowledge of the pathogenicity factors of this fungus is still limited. A transposon tagging approach based on the mimp1/impala double-component system has allowed us to select a mutant altered in multiple metabolic and morphological processes, trichothecene production and virulence. The flanking regions of mimp1 were used to seek homologies in the F. culmorum genome, and revealed that mimp1 had reinserted within the last exon of a gene encoding a hypothetical protein of 318 amino acids which contains a ROGDI-like leucine zipper domain, supposedly playing a protein–protein interaction or regulatory role. By functional complementation and bioinformatic analysis, we characterized the gene as the yeast Rav2 homologue, confirming the high level of divergence in multicellular fungi. Deletion of FcRav2 or its orthologous gene in F. graminearum highlighted its ability to influence a number of functions, including virulence, trichothecene type B biosynthesis, resistance to azoles and resistance to osmotic and oxidative stress. Our results indicate that the FcRav2 protein (and possibly the RAVE complex as a whole) may become a suitable target for new antifungal drug development or the plant-mediated resistance response in filamentous fungi of agricultural interest.
(The abstract is excluded from the Creative Commons licence and has been copied with permission by the publisher.)
Link to article at publishers website
Database assignments for author(s): Quirico Migheli, Matias Pasquali

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
molecular biology - genes

---

Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Fusarium culmorum	Wheat (Triticum)