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Comparative transcriptomic analysis of the heat stress response in the filamentous fungus Metarhizium anisopliae using RNA-Seq

  • Genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics
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Abstract

The entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae is widely used for biological control of a variety of insect pests. The effectiveness of the microbial pest control agent, however, is limited by poor thermotolerance. The molecular mechanism underlying the response to heat stress in the conidia of entomopathogenic fungi remains unclear. Here, we conducted high-throughput RNA-Seq to analyze the differential gene expression between control and heat treated conidia of M. anisopliae at the transcriptome level. RNA-Seq analysis generated 6,284,262 and 5,826,934 clean reads in the control and heat treated groups, respectively. A total of 2,722 up-regulated and 788 down-regulated genes, with a cutoff of twofold change, were identified by expression analysis. Among these differentially expressed genes, many were related to metabolic processes, biological regulation, cellular processes and response to stimuli. The majority of genes involved in endocytic pathways, proteosome pathways and regulation of autophagy were up-regulated, while most genes involved in the ribosome pathway were down-regulated. These results suggest that these differentially expressed genes may be involved in the heat stress response in conidia. As expected, significant changes in expression levels of genes encoding heat shock proteins and proteins involved in trehalose accumulation were observed in conditions of heat stress. These results expand our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of the heat stress response of conidia and provide a foundation for future investigations.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Special Fund for Forestry Scientific Research in the Public Interest (Grant No. 201204506), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 31201568 and 31272096) and the Key Project for Natural Science Research of Anhui Provincial Higher School (Grant No. KJ2014A012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of Microbial Pest Control, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, 230036, China

    Zhang-Xun Wang, Xia-Zhi Zhou, Hui-Min Meng, Yu-Jun Liu, Quan Zhou & Bo Huang

  2. School of Plant Protection, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, 230036, China

    Zhang-Xun Wang

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  1. Zhang-Xun Wang
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  2. Xia-Zhi Zhou
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  3. Hui-Min Meng
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  6. Bo Huang
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Correspondence to Bo Huang.

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Zhang-Xun Wang and Xia-Zhi Zhou contributed equally to this work.

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Wang, ZX., Zhou, XZ., Meng, HM. et al. Comparative transcriptomic analysis of the heat stress response in the filamentous fungus Metarhizium anisopliae using RNA-Seq. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 98, 5589–5597 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-014-5763-y

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