RESUMO
Molecular mimicry is one of the evolutionary strategies that parasites use to manipulate the host metabolism and perform an effective infection. This phenomenon has been observed in several animal and plant pathosystems. Despite the relevance of this mechanism in pathogenesis, little is known about it in fungus-plant interactions. For that reason, we performed an in silico method to select plausible mimicry candidates for the Ustilago maydis-maize interaction. Our methodology used a tripartite sequence comparison between the parasite, the host, and nonparasitic organisms' genomes. Furthermore, we used RNA sequencing information to identify gene coexpression, and we determined subcellular localization to detect potential cases of colocalization in the imitator-imitated pairs. With these approximations, we found a putative extracellular formin in U. maydis with the potential to rearrange the host cell cytoskeleton. In parallel, we detected at least two maize genes involved in the cytoskeleton rearrangement differentially expressed under U. maydis infection; thus, this find increases the expectation for the potential mimicry role of the fungal protein. The use of several sources of data led us to develop a strict and replicable in silico methodology to detect molecular mimicry in pathosystems with enough information available. Furthermore, this is the first time that a genomewide search has been performed to detect molecular mimicry in a U. maydis-maize system. Additionally, to allow the reproducibility of this experiment and the use of this pipeline, we created a Web server called Molecular Mimicry Finder.[Formula: see text] Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Assuntos
Ustilago , Zea mays , Basidiomycota , Simulação por Computador , Citoesqueleto , Forminas , Interações Hospedeiro-Patógeno , Mimetismo Molecular , Doenças das Plantas , Reprodutibilidade dos Testes , Ustilago/genéticaRESUMO
In recent years it has become clear that there are several molecular links that interconnect the plant cell surface continuum, which is highly important in many biological processes such as plant growth, development, and interaction with the environment. The plant cell surface continuum can be defined as the space that contains and interlinks the cell wall, plasma membrane and cytoskeleton compartments. In this review, we provide an updated view of cell surface proteins that include modular domains with an extensin (EXT)-motif followed by a cytoplasmic kinase-like domain, known as PERKs (for proline-rich extensin-like receptor kinases); with an EXT-motif and an actin binding domain, known as formins; and with extracellular hybrid-EXTs. We focus our attention on the EXT-motifs with the short sequence Ser-Pro(3-5), which is found in several different protein contexts within the same extracellular space, highlighting a putative conserved structural and functional role. A closer understanding of the dynamic regulation of plant cell surface continuum and its relationship with the downstream signalling cascade is a crucial forthcoming challenge.