Title
Contrasting genomic diversity in two closely related postharvest pathogens: Penicillium digitatum and penicillium expansum
Date Issued
01 January 2016
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Droby S.
Sela N.
Marcet-Houben M.
Gabaldón T.
Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology
Publisher(s)
Oxford University Press
Abstract
Penicillium digitatum and Penicillium expansum are two closely related fungal plant pathogens causing green and blue mold in harvested fruit, respectively.Thetwospeciesdiffer intheir host specificity,being P. digitatum restrictedto citrus fruits andP.expansum able to infect a wide range of fruits after harvest. Although host-specific Penicillium species have been found to have a smaller gene content, it is so far unclear whether these different host specificities impact genome variation at the intraspecific level. Here we assessed genome variation across four P. digitatum and seven P. expansum isolates from geographically distant regions. Our results show very high similarity (average 0.06 SNPs [single nucleotide polymorphism] per kb) between globally distributed isolates of P. digitatum pointing to a recent expansion of a single lineage. This low level of genetic variation found in our samples contrasts with the higher genetic variability observed in the similarly distributed P. expansum isolates (2.44 SNPs per kb). Patterns of polymorphismin P. expansum indicate that recombination exists between genetically diverged strains. Consistent with the existence of sexual recombination and heterothallism, which was unknown for this species, we identified the two alternative mating types in different P. expansum isolates. Patterns of polymorphismin P. digitatum indicate a recent clonal population expansion of a single lineage that has reachedworldwide distribution. We suggest that the contrasting patterns of genomic variation between the two species reflect underlying differences in population dynamics related with host specificities and related agricultural practices. It should be noted, however, that this results should be confirmed with a larger sampling of strains, as newstrainsmay broaden the diversity so far found in P. digitatum.
Start page
218
End page
227
Volume
8
Issue
1
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Genética, Herencia Ciencias de las plantas, Botánica
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84991269995
PubMed ID
Source
Genome Biology and Evolution
ISSN of the container
17596653
Sponsor(s)
This work was supported in part by Grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness: “Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2013–2017” SEV-2012-0208, and BIO2012-37161 cofounded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF); from the European Union and ERC Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement ERC-2012-StG-310325, and grant from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No H2020-MSCA-ITN-2014-642095; and Peruvian Ministry of Education: “Beca Presidente de la República” (2013-III).
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus