Lipidomics-Based Analysis in Magnaporthe Oryzae

Abstract

Magnaporthe oryzae (M. oryzae) is the causal agent of the rice blast disease. Triacylglycerides (TAGs) were one of the major sources used to generate turgor pressure as a means for M. oryzae to penetrate into host?s leaf. Lipids therefore play a very important role in the pathogenesis. However, there is up to date no lipidomics study of M. oryzae available. The lipidome of M. oryzae was profiled and quantified along the pathological cycle. The lipidomics study as a platform was further used to analyze two beta oxidation pathway mutants and proposed possible explanation for their nonpathogenicity.

Previous studies already discovered that trehalose synthase (Tps1) was not only responsible for the production of trehalose and utilization of nitrogen source, but also the regulation of several NADPH-dependent transcriptional corepressors, namely Nmr1, Nmr2, and Nmr3, which can each bind NADP. Therefore, the structure of Tps1 was modeled for screening of possible inhibitors in silico against a database of 400k compounds, and molecular dynamics studies were also done for some of the best hits. Advice was then given for future inhibitor design in the context of rice blast control.