Transcriptomic Analysis of Pathogenic and Nonpathogenic Forms of Metarhizium rileyi Cultured in vitro

Liu Shouzhu; Zhang Xipeng; Hao Xuanhui; Ren Xianluan; Wang Shixian; Nie Yuheng; Wu Rui

doi:10.14083/j.issn.1001-4942.2023.11.008

Abstract：Metarhizium rileyi(Farlow)Kepler is an important entomopathogenic fungus that has both pathogenic and nonpathogenic forms during parasitism,but only the pathogenic form can kill the host.In order to understand the molecular mechanism of the transformation from nonpathogenic form to pathogenic form of M.rileyi,transcriptomic analysis of these two forms was performed.The results showed that a total of 89 498 Uni-genes were obtained from the two morphological fungus,and the proportion of genes related to"cellular com-ponent"in GO annotation was the highest,and also that related to"general function prediction only"in KOG annotation.However,for KEGG annotation,the genes involved in"metabolic pathways"in"metabolism"subclass and"MAPK signaling pathway"in"environmental information processing"subclass were the high-est,while in"cellular processes"subclass,the genes related to"quorum sensing"were also highly ex-pressed.These initially provided genetic evidence for quorum sensing regulation mechanism of the two morpho-logical transitions of M.rileyi.Differential expression gene(DEG)analysis showed that 3 113 genes were up-regulated and 3 671 genes were down-regulated during the morphological transformation of M.rileyi,but the difference enrichment analysis(DEGs)did not obtain effective results.In conclusion,the gene expression was significantly changed during morphological transformation of M.rileyi,and the metabolism was vigorous,quo-rum sensing mechanism was triggered and cell signal transduction pathway was activated,and finally the trans-formation from nonpathogenic form to pathogenic form was completed.This study could provide a useful refer-ence for in-depth understanding of the molecular mechanism of the M.rileyi pathogenicity.