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The blue-light receptor CmWC-1 mediates fruit body development and secondary metabolism in Cordyceps militaris

  • Applied Genetics and Molecular Biotechnology
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Abstract

Light is an essential factor for pigment formation and fruit body development in Cordyceps militaris, a well-known edible and medicinal fungus. Cmwc-1, a homolog of the blue-light receptor gene white collar-1 (wc-1) in Neurospora crassa, was cloned from the C. militaris genome in our previous study. Here, Cmwc-1 gene inactivation results in thicker aerial hyphae, disordered fruit body development, a significant reduction in conidial formation, and carotenoid and cordycepin production. These characteristics were restored when the ΔCmwc-1 strains were hybridized with wild-type strains of the opposite mating type. A genome-wide expression analysis revealed that there were 1042 light-responsive genes in the wild-type strain and only 458 in the ΔCmwc-1 strain. Among five putative photoreceptors identified, Vivid, cryptochrome-1, and cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer photolyase are strongly induced by light in a Cmwc-1-dependent manner, while phytochrome and cryptochrome-2 were not induced. The transcription factors involved in the fungal light reaction were mainly of the Zn2Cys6 type. CmWC-1 regulates adenylosuccinate synthase, an important enzyme for adenosine de novo synthesis, which could explain the reduction in cordycepin production. Some G protein-coupled receptors that control fungal fruit body formation and the sexual cycle were regulated by CmWC-1, and the cAMP pathway involved in light signal transduction in N. crassa was not critical for the photoreaction in the fungus here. A transcriptional analysis indicated that steroid biosynthesis was more active in the ΔCmwc-1 strain, suggesting that CmWC-1 might switch the vegetative growth state to primordia differentiation by suppressing the expression of related genes.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Prof. Xingzhong Liu (Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Chengshu Wang (Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, CAS) for their critical reviews and valuable suggestions. We are also grateful to Prof. Xingzhong Liu and Qiming Wang (Institute of Microbiology, CAS) for providing the pAg1-H3 and pBN50 plasmids. This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2014CB138302), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31572179), the project of the State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, CAS, Technical Assistance Projects in Developing Countries from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (KY20110097), and the Coal-based Key Scientific and Technological Project from Shanxi Province (FT2014-03-01). The authors also sincerely thank the unknown reviewers and editors for their helpful comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 3 Park 1, Beichen West Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, China

    Tao Yang, Mingmin Guo & Caihong Dong

  2. College of Chemistry and Life Science, Shenyang Normal University, Shenyang, 110034, China

    Mingmin Guo

  3. Shanxi Research Institute for Medicine and Life Science, Taiyuan, 030006, China

    Huaijun Yang & Suping Guo

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  1. Tao Yang
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Correspondence to Caihong Dong.

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Yang, T., Guo, M., Yang, H. et al. The blue-light receptor CmWC-1 mediates fruit body development and secondary metabolism in Cordyceps militaris . Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 100, 743–755 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-7047-6

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