Botrytis cinerea methyl isocitrate lyase mediates oxidative stress tolerance and programmed cell death by modulating cellular succinate levels.

Botrytis cinerea methyl isocitrate lyase mediates oxidative stress tolerance and programmed cell death by modulating cellular succinate levels. Fungal Genet Biol. 2020 Nov 18;:103484 Authors: Oren-Young L, Llorens E, Bi K, Zhang M, Sharon A Abstract Fungi lack the entire animal core apoptotic machinery. Nevertheless, regulated cell death with apoptotic markers occurs in multicellular as well as in unicellular fungi and is essential for proper fungal development and stress adaptation. The discrepancy between appearance of an apoptotic-like regulated cell death (RCD) in the absence of core apoptotic machinery is further complicated by the fact that heterologous expression of animal apoptotic genes in fungi affects fungal RCD. Here we describe the role of BcMcl, a methyl isocitrate lyase from the plant pathogenic fungus Botrytis cinerea, in succinate metabolism, and the connection of succinate with stress responses and cell death. Over expression of bcmcl resulted in elevated tolerance to oxidative stress and reduced levels of RCD, which were associated with accumulation of elevated levels of succinate. bcmcl deletion strains had almost no effect on fungal development or stress sensitivity, and succinate levels were unchanged compared to the wild type strain. Gene expression experiments showed co-regulation of bcmcl and bcicl (isocitrate lyase); expression of the bcicl gene was enhanced in bcmcl deletion and suppressed in bcmlc over exp...
Source: Fungal Genetics and Biology - Category: Biology Authors: Tags: Fungal Genet Biol Source Type: research