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Cryphonectria hypovirus 1-Induced Epigenetic Changes in Infected Phytopathogenic Fungus Cryphonectria parasitica

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Abstract

Biotic stress caused by virus infections induces epigenetic changes in infected plants and animals, but this is the first report on methylation pattern changes in a fungus after mycovirus infection. As a model pathosystem for mycovirus-host interactions, we used Cryphonectria hypovirus 1 (CHV1) and its host fungus Cryphonectria parasitica, in which deregulation of methylation cycle enzymes upon virus infection was observed previously. Six CHV1 strains of different subtypes were transferred into three different C. parasitica isolates in order to assess the effect of different CHV1 strains and/or subtypes on global cytosine methylation level in infected fungus, using methylation-sensitive amplification polymorphism (MSAP). Infection with CHV1 affected the methylation pattern of the C. parasitica genome; it increased the number and diversity of methylated, hemi-methylated, and total MSAP markers found in infected fungal isolates compared to virus-free controls. The increase in methylation levels correlated well with the CHV1-induced reduction of fungal growth in vitro, indicating that C. parasitica genome methylation upon CHV1 infection, rather than being the defensive mechanism of the fungus, is more likely to be the virulence determinant of the virus. Furthermore, the severity of CHV1 effect on methylation levels of infected C. parasitica isolates depended mostly on individual CHV1 strains and on the combination of host and virus genomes, rather than on the virus subtype. These novel findings broaden our knowledge about CHV1 strains which could potentially be used in human-aided biocontrol of chestnut blight, a disease caused by C. parasitica in chestnut forest ecosystems and orchards.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by Croatian Science Foundation (project no. 5381) and SNSF (SCOPES project no. IZ73Z0_152525/1). We thank Dr. Daniel Rigling for providing the virus strains EP713 and SHE30 and Dr. Zlatko Šatović for the useful suggestions on data analysis.

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Correspondence to Mirna Ćurković-Perica.

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Nuskern, L., Ježić, M., Liber, Z. et al. Cryphonectria hypovirus 1-Induced Epigenetic Changes in Infected Phytopathogenic Fungus Cryphonectria parasitica . Microb Ecol 75, 790–798 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-017-1064-1

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