Abstract:

GATA transcription factors play important roles in regulating hyphal growth,conidial production,conidial germination and virulence in phytopathogenic fungi.In order to explore the function of GATA transcription factors in Fusarium pseudograminearum,a total of seven GATA transcription factors encoding genes,which were subsequently named as FpGATA1-FpGATA7,were identified from the genome of F.pseudograminearum using homology searching and domain identification.The full-length sequences of FpGATA genes were 614-3 155 bp,containing one,two or three introns.All FpGATA proteins contained at least one conserved GATA domain,and most of these proteins were alkaline.The quantitative Real-time PCR was used to assay the relative expression levels of FpGATA genes during different infection stages.We found that FpGATA1,FpGATA4,FpGATA5,FpGATA6 and FpGATA7 were induced during the early infection stages,and FpGATA2 was induced in the later infection stage.The FpGATA5 was deleted in F.pseudograminearum by genetic transformation.Compared to the wild-type,the FpGATA5 deletion mutants showed a decrease in hyphal growth and conidial production,and the significantly reduced pathogenicity was observed by barely leaves and wheat coleoptiles inoculation.Overall,the results suggested that the expression of several FpGATA genes was induced during F.pseudograminearum infection,and FpGATA5 played roles in growth,conidiation and pathogenesis of F.pseudograminearum.

Key words: Fusarium crown rot, Fusarium pseudograminearum, GATA transcription factor, Gene expression, Pathogenicity