Profound effect of a small cysteine-free protein (Cfp1) on genomic expression of Metarhizium robertsii

Purpose: This transcriptomic analysis aims at unveiling all possible genes orchestrated by Cfp1, which is evidently required for insect pathogenicity and virulence-related cellular events of Metarhizium robertsii. Methods: Total RNAs were extracted from three 3-day-old hyphal cultures (replicates) of cfp1 disruption and wild-type strains grown under normal culture conditionsand and subjected to deep sequencing on Illumina NovaseqTM 6000 platform. The sequence reads that passed quality filters were mapped to the genome of Metarhizium robertsii. All genes differentially expressed in the disruptant versus the wild-type strain were enriched to GO function classes and KEGG pathways. Results: The resultant transcriptome comprises 10681 detected genes. Among those, 605 genes were dysregulated in the absence of cfp1, including 356 down-regulated and 249 up-regulated. Conclusions: Cfp1 lacking any predictable function domain has profound impact on the genomic expression of Metarhizium robertsii. RNA profiles from 3-day-old hyphal cultures of cfp1 disruption and wild-type strains.