Retromer Is Essential for Autophagy-Dependent Plant Infection by the Rice Blast Fungus

We thank Dr. Yizhen Deng at the Temasek Life sciences Laboratory (TLL) for providing the RFP-MoAtg8 plasmid. We would like to thank Drs. Zhenbiao Yang (University of California, Riverside) and Xianying Dou (Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University) for helpful discussions.Author Summary The rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae utilizes key infection structures, called appressoria, elaborated at the tips of the conidial germ tubes to gain entry into the host tissue. Development of the appressorium is accompanied with autophagy in the conidium leading to programmed cell death. This work highlights the significance of the Vps35/retromer membrane-trafficking machinery in the regulation of autophagy during appressorium-mediated host penetration, and thus sheds light on a novel molecular mechanism underlying autophagy-based membrane trafficking events during pathogen-host interaction in rice blast disease. Our findings provide the first genetic evidence that the retromer controls the initiation of autophagy in filamentous fungi.Yeshttp://www.plosgenetics.org/static/editorial#pee