The type III restriction endonuclease EcoP15I was used in isolating fragments of 26 bp from defined positions of cDNAs. We call this substantially improved variant to the conventional serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) procedure "SuperSAGE." By applying SuperSAGE to Magnaporthe grisea (blast)-infected rice leaves, gene expression profiles of both the rice host and blast fungus were simul...

Rapid progress in fungal genome sequencing presents many new opportunities for functional genomic analysis of fungal biology through the systematic mutagenesis of the genes identified through sequencing. However, the lack of efficient tools for targeted gene replacement is a limiting factor for fungal functional genomics, as it often necessitates the screening of a large number of transformants...

Microorganisms with large genomes are commonly the subjects of single-round partial sequencing of cDNA, generating expressed sequence tags (ESTs). Usually there is a great distance between gene discovery by EST projects and submission of amino acid sequences to public databases. We analyzed the relationship between available ESTs and protein sequences and used the sequences available in the sec...

Glufosinate ammonium diminished developments of rice (Oryza sativa) blast and brown leaf spot in 35S:bar-transgenic rice. Pre- and postinoculation treatments of this herbicide reduced disease development. Glufosinate ammonium specifically impeded appressorium formation of the pathogens Magnaporthe grisea and Cochliobolus miyabeanus on hydrophobic surface and on transgenic rice. In contrast, con...

The avrCO39 gene conferring avirulence toward rice cultivar CO39 was previously mapped to chromosome 1 of Magnaporthe grisea between cosegregating markers CH5-120H and 1.2H and marker 5-10-F. In the present study, this region of the chromosome was physically mapped using RecA-mediated Achilles' cleavage. Cleavage of genomic DNA sequences within CH5-120H and 5-10-F liberated a 610-kb restriction...

We describe in this study punchless, a nonpathogenic mutant from the rice blast fungus M. grisea, obtained by plasmid-mediated insertional mutagenesis. As do most fungal plant pathogens, M. grisea differentiates an infection structure specialized for host penetration called the appressorium. We show that punchless differentiates appressoria that fail to breach either the leaf epidermis or artif...

We isolated and identified four rice genes, OsBIERF1 to OsBIERF4 (Oryza sativa benzothiadiazole (BTH)-induced ethylene responsive transcriptional factors (ERF)) and analyzed their expressions in rice disease resistance response and under various abiotic stress conditions. The OsBIERF1-4 proteins contain conserved ERF domains, but are categorized into different classes of the previously characte...

Fungal plant pathogens have evolved diverse strategies to overcome the multilayered plant defence responses that confront them upon host invasion. Here we show that pathogenicity of the cucumber anthracnose fungus, Colletotrichum lagenarium, and the rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe grisea, requires a gene orthologous to Saccharomyces cerevisiae SSD1, a regulator of cell wall assembly. Screening f...

Sequence analysis of a 13-kb telomeric region in O-137, a rice pathogenic isolate of Magnaporthe grisea, uncovered a novel gene, designated TLH1 (telomere-linked helicase 1). The TLH1 gene is a member of a gene family, and the sequences flanking this gene family have also been amplified. Genetic mapping showed that most members of the TLH gene family are tightly linked to the telomeres. A physi...

Magnaporthe grisea, the causal agent of rice blast disease, differentiates a specialized infection structure called an appressorium that is crucial for host plant penetration. Previously, it was found that cAMP regulates appressorium formation. To further understand the cellular mechanisms involved in appressorium formation, we have cloned a gene (MAC1) encoding adenylate cyclase, a membrane-bo...