Epigenetic regulation during infection for rust pathogens
B. XU (1) (1) Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia

Histone modification represents an important layer of epigenetic regulation that influences chromatin structure, genome activity, and gene transcription in all eukaryotes. Recent studies have demonstrated the participation of H3K27me3 in regulating secondary metabolite in Fusarium graminearum and H3K9me2 in effector expression control in Leptosphaeria maculans. However, there are more to be uncovered to fully understand the epigenome pattern in fungal pathogens and their association with transcription regulation and pathogenicity. A transcriptome study in our lab has found a concerted expression pattern for all known effectors in the flax rust fungus, Melampsora lini, with low expression in pre-infection structure and induction in planta peaking at about 2-3 DPI. A similar expression profile has been conducted for the wheat stem rust fungus, Puccinia graminis f.sp. tritici, to identify similarly expressed effector candidates. We are investigating the role of epigenetic processes in regulation of rust gene expression. We have detected the presence of histone methylation enzymes in the in flax rust and wheat stem rust genome sequences and immunoblotting has confirmed the presence of specific histone modifications including H3K4me2, H3K4me3, H3K27me3, and H3K9me2 . We are now using ChIP-Seq to study the epigenomic changes at different time points during infection of wheat stem rust and flax rust, and correlate these with gene transcription and pathogenicity control.

Abstract Number: C2-3, P11-389
Session Type: Concurrent