Transcriptional responses of Fusarium graminearum when exposed to bacterial MAMPs. Fusarium graminearum PH-1

The plant fungal pathogen Fusarium graminearum which has part of its life cycle in the soil generally comes in contact with bacteria. Therefore the fungus was used as fungal model to test fungal responses to bacterial presence and ascertain the presence of an innate immune system in fungi through a transcriptomics study. Bacterial presence was established by exposing young fungal cultures to the well characterised MAMPs (Microbe Associated Molecular Pattern) such as Flagellin (FLG), Lipooligosacharides (LOS) and Peptidoglycans (PGN) and water was used as the control. The results showed that the fungus reacts to the presence of MAMPs within hours and that the 3 MAMPs up-regulated a set of common genes. These significantly up-regulated common genes can be classified into categories such as energy generation, amino acid metabolism, iron uptake, secondary metabolism and transporters related to secondary metabolism. Analysis of the transcriptional reponse from FLG showed that the MAMP which was obtained comercially was blended with sucrose and this was later confirmed by the commercial provider. Overall design: Fungal cultures in biological triplicates were treated for 1,2 and 4 hours with MAMPs (LOS, PGN or FLG) and MQ water as control. Treatment with FLG and MQ water was repeated in a different laboratory to assess reproducibility.