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Cellular Dynamics and Genomic Identity of Centromeres in Cereal Blast Fungus.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Yadav, V; Yang, F; Reza, MH; Liu, S; Valent, B; Sanyal, K; Naqvi, NI
Published in: mBio
July 2019

Precise kinetochore-microtubule interactions ensure faithful chromosome segregation in eukaryotes. Centromeres, identified as scaffolding sites for kinetochore assembly, are among the most rapidly evolving chromosomal loci in terms of the DNA sequence and length and organization of intrinsic elements. Neither the centromere structure nor the kinetochore dynamics is well studied in plant-pathogenic fungi. Here, we sought to understand the process of chromosome segregation in the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae High-resolution imaging of green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged inner kinetochore proteins CenpA and CenpC revealed unusual albeit transient declustering of centromeres just before anaphase separation of chromosomes in M. oryzae Strikingly, the declustered centromeres positioned randomly at the spindle midzone without an apparent metaphase plate per se Using CenpA chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by deep sequencing, all seven centromeres in M. oryzae were found to be regional, spanning 57-kb to 109-kb transcriptionally poor regions. Highly AT-rich and heavily methylated DNA sequences were the only common defining features of all the centromeres in rice blast. Lack of centromere-specific DNA sequence motifs or repetitive elements suggests an epigenetic specification of centromere function in M. oryzae PacBio genome assemblies and synteny analyses facilitated comparison of the centromeric/pericentromeric regions in distinct isolates of rice blast and wheat blast and in Magnaporthiopsis poae Overall, this study revealed unusual centromere dynamics and precisely identified the centromere loci in the top model fungal pathogens that belong to Magnaporthales and cause severe losses in the global production of food crops and turf grasses.IMPORTANCEMagnaporthe oryzae is an important fungal pathogen that causes a loss of 10% to 30% of the annual rice crop due to the devastating blast disease. In most organisms, kinetochores are clustered together or arranged at the metaphase plate to facilitate synchronized anaphase separation of sister chromatids in mitosis. In this study, we showed that the initially clustered kinetochores separate and position randomly prior to anaphase in M. oryzae Centromeres in M. oryzae occupy large genomic regions and form on AT-rich DNA without any common sequence motifs. Overall, this study identified atypical kinetochore dynamics and mapped functional centromeres in M. oryzae to define the roles of centromeric and pericentric boundaries in kinetochore assembly on epigenetically specified centromere loci. This study should pave the way for further understanding of the contribution of heterochromatin in genome stability and virulence of the blast fungus and its related species of high economic importance.

Duke Scholars

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Published In

mBio

DOI

EISSN

2150-7511

ISSN

2150-7511

Publication Date

July 2019

Volume

10

Issue

4

Start / End Page

e01581 / e01519

Related Subject Headings

  • Magnaporthe
  • Kinetochores
  • Edible Grain
  • Centromere
  • 3207 Medical microbiology
  • 3107 Microbiology
  • 3101 Biochemistry and cell biology
  • 0605 Microbiology
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Yadav, V., Yang, F., Reza, M. H., Liu, S., Valent, B., Sanyal, K., & Naqvi, N. I. (2019). Cellular Dynamics and Genomic Identity of Centromeres in Cereal Blast Fungus. MBio, 10(4), e01581–e01519. https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.01581-19
Yadav, Vikas, Fan Yang, Md Hashim Reza, Sanzhen Liu, Barbara Valent, Kaustuv Sanyal, and Naweed I. Naqvi. “Cellular Dynamics and Genomic Identity of Centromeres in Cereal Blast Fungus.MBio 10, no. 4 (July 2019): e01581–e01519. https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.01581-19.
Yadav V, Yang F, Reza MH, Liu S, Valent B, Sanyal K, et al. Cellular Dynamics and Genomic Identity of Centromeres in Cereal Blast Fungus. mBio. 2019 Jul;10(4):e01581–e01519.
Yadav, Vikas, et al. “Cellular Dynamics and Genomic Identity of Centromeres in Cereal Blast Fungus.MBio, vol. 10, no. 4, July 2019, pp. e01581–e01519. Epmc, doi:10.1128/mbio.01581-19.
Yadav V, Yang F, Reza MH, Liu S, Valent B, Sanyal K, Naqvi NI. Cellular Dynamics and Genomic Identity of Centromeres in Cereal Blast Fungus. mBio. 2019 Jul;10(4):e01581–e01519.

Published In

mBio

DOI

EISSN

2150-7511

ISSN

2150-7511

Publication Date

July 2019

Volume

10

Issue

4

Start / End Page

e01581 / e01519

Related Subject Headings

  • Magnaporthe
  • Kinetochores
  • Edible Grain
  • Centromere
  • 3207 Medical microbiology
  • 3107 Microbiology
  • 3101 Biochemistry and cell biology
  • 0605 Microbiology