Distinctive expansion of potential virulence genes in the genome of the oomycete fish pathogen Saprolegnia parasitica.

Oomycetes in the class Saprolegniomycetidae of the Eukaryotic kingdom Stramenopila have evolved as severe pathogens of amphibians, crustaceans, fish and insects, resulting in major losses in aquaculture and damage to aquatic ecosystems. We have sequenced the 63 Mb genome of the fresh water fish pathogen, Saprolegnia parasitica. Approximately 1/3 of the assembled genome exhibits loss of heterozygosity, indicating an efficient mechanism for revealing new variation. Comparison of S. parasitica with plant pathogenic oomycetes suggests that during evolution the host cellular environment has driven distinct patterns of gene expansion and loss in the genomes of plant and animal pathogens. S. parasitica possesses one of the largest repertoires of proteases (270) among eukaryotes that are deployed in waves at different points during infection as determined from RNA-Seq data. In contrast, despite being capable of living saprotrophically, parasitism has led to loss of inorganic nitrogen and sulfur assimilation pathways, strikingly similar to losses in obligate plant pathogenic oomycetes and fungi. The large gene families that are hallmarks of plant pathogenic oomycetes such as Phytophthora appear to be lacking in S. parasitica, including those encoding RXLR effectors, Crinkler's, and Necrosis Inducing-Like Proteins (NLP). S. parasitica also has a very large kinome of 543 kinases, 10% of which is induced upon infection. Moreover, S. parasitica encodes several genes typical of animals or animal-pathogens and lacking from other oomycetes, including disintegrins and galactose-binding lectins, whose expression and evolutionary origins implicate horizontal gene transfer in the evolution of animal pathogenesis in S. parasitica

Effects of autumn nitrogen nutrition and a winter restbreaking spray on the growth, development and chemical composition of young 'Golden Delicious' apple trees grown in sand culture

Omission of N during autumn on pot-grown 'Golden Delicious/Merton 793' apple trees resulted in accelerated leaf-drop and lower total N, soluble N, protein N, P and Ca, and higher starch, total sugars and K in the dormant terminal shoots in comparison with a full autumn N treatment. Omission of both autumn N and the artificial rest-breaking spray resulted in delayed bud-break and flowering but the effect of these two treatments was inter-dependent. Neither the autumn application of N alone nor the rest-breaking spray alone resulted in completely satisfactory bud-breaking and flowering. Omission of autumn N and/or the rest-breaking spray reduced flower number per tree. Omission of both factors resulted in very poor fruit-set while, where only one of these two factors was omitted, the fruit-set was not reduced. Fruit-set was strongly related to the time of flowering. Autumn N nutrition also showed a residual effect on growth and the leaf nutritional status the following season. © 1979.Articl

Effector identification in the lettuce downy mildew Bremia lactucae by massively parallel transcriptome sequencing

Lettuce downy mildew (Bremia lactucae) is a rapidly adapting oomycete pathogen affecting commercial lettuce cultivation. Oomycetes are known to use a diverse arsenal of secreted proteins (effectors) to manipulate their hosts. Two classes of effector are known to be translocated by the host: the RXLRs and Crinklers. To gain insight into the repertoire of effectors used by B. lactucae to manipulate its host, we performed massively parallel sequencing of cDNA derived from B. lactucae spores and infected lettuce (Lactuca sativa) seedlings. From over 2.3 million 454 GS FLX reads, 59 618 contigs were assembled representing both plant and pathogen transcripts. Of these, 19 663 contigs were determined to be of B. lactucae origin as they matched pathogen genome sequences (SOLiD) that were obtained from >270 million reads of spore-derived genomic DNA. After correction of cDNA sequencing errors with SOLiD data, translation into protein models and filtering, 16 372 protein models remained, 1023 of which were predicted to be secreted. This secretome included elicitins, necrosis and ethylene-inducing peptide 1-like proteins, glucanase inhibitors and lectins, and was enriched in cysteine-rich proteins. Candidate host-translocated effectors included 78 protein models with RXLR effector features. In addition, we found indications for an unknown number of Crinkler-like sequences. Similarity clustering of secreted proteins revealed additional effector candidates. We provide a first look at the transcriptome of B. lactucae and its encoded effector arsenal