Abstract

Intrinsic disorder is a common structural characteristic of proteins and a central player in the biochemical processes of species. However, the role of intrinsic disorder in the evolution of plant-pathogen interactions is rarely investigated. Here, we explored the role of intrinsic disorder in the development of the pathogenicity in the RXLR AVR2 effector of Phytophthora infestans. We found AVR2 exhibited high nucleotide diversity generated by point mutation, early-termination, altered start codon, deletion/insertion, and intragenic recombination and is predicted to be an intrinsically disordered protein. AVR2 amino acid sequences conferring a virulent phenotype had a higher disorder tendency in both the N- and C-terminal regions compared with sequences conferring an avirulent phenotype. In addition, we also found virulent AVR2 mutants gained one or two short linear interaction motifs, the critical components of disordered proteins required for protein-protein interactions. Furthermore, virulent AVR2 mutants were predicted to be unstable and have a short protein half-life. Taken together, these results support the notion that intrinsic disorder is important for the effector function of pathogens and demonstrate that SLiM-mediated protein-protein interaction in the C-terminal effector domain might contribute greatly to the evasion of resistance-protein detection in P. infestans.

Keywords

effector; intrinsically disordered protein; intragenic recombination; coevolution; AVR2; Phytophthora infestans

Published in

Molecular plant-microbe interactions
2020, Volume: 33, number: 7, pages: 921-931
Publisher: AMER PHYTOPATHOLOGICAL SOC

SLU Authors

• Zhan, Jiasui

  • Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University

Associated SLU-program

SLU Plant Protection Network


UKÄ Subject classification

Agricultural Science
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Evolutionary Biology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1094/MPMI-07-19-0179-R

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/108329