TY - JOUR
T1 - Establishment of Neurospora crassa as a model organism for fungal virology
AU - Honda, Shinji
AU - Eusebio-Cope, Ana
AU - Miyashita, Shuhei
AU - Yokoyama, Ayumi
AU - Aulia, Annisa
AU - Shahi, Sabitree
AU - Kondo, Hideki
AU - Suzuki, Nobuhiro
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported in part by Yomogi Inc. (to N.S.), the Joint Usage/Research Center, Institute of Plant Science and Resources, Okayama University (Nos. 3023, 3123, and R224 to S.H.), Research Grants from the University of Fukui (to S.H.), and Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A and B) and on Innovative Areas, and Grants-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) (KAKENHI 25252011 and 16H06436, 16H06429, and 16K21723 to N.S. and HK, and 19H04828 to S.H.). We are grateful to Drs. Donald L Nuss, Bradley I. Hillman, and Satoko Kanematsu for the generous gift of the fungal/viral strains, and Ms. Sakae Hisano for technical assistance. Our gratitude is extended to Profs. Carlo Cogoni and Caterina Catalanotto who provided several quelling-deficient mutants at an initial stage of the study. We gratefully acknowledge the Neurospora gene knockout consortium (Neurospora Functional Genomics grant #P01GM68087, NIH).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - The filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa is used as a model organism for genetics, developmental biology and molecular biology. Remarkably, it is not known to host or to be susceptible to infection with any viruses. Here, we identify diverse RNA viruses in N. crassa and other Neurospora species, and show that N. crassa supports the replication of these viruses as well as some viruses from other fungi. Several encapsidated double-stranded RNA viruses and capsid-less positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses can be experimentally introduced into N. crassa protoplasts or spheroplasts. This allowed us to examine viral replication and RNAi-mediated antiviral responses in this organism. We show that viral infection upregulates the transcription of RNAi components, and that Dicer proteins (DCL-1, DCL-2) and an Argonaute (QDE-2) participate in suppression of viral replication. Our study thus establishes N. crassa as a model system for the study of host-virus interactions.
AB - The filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa is used as a model organism for genetics, developmental biology and molecular biology. Remarkably, it is not known to host or to be susceptible to infection with any viruses. Here, we identify diverse RNA viruses in N. crassa and other Neurospora species, and show that N. crassa supports the replication of these viruses as well as some viruses from other fungi. Several encapsidated double-stranded RNA viruses and capsid-less positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses can be experimentally introduced into N. crassa protoplasts or spheroplasts. This allowed us to examine viral replication and RNAi-mediated antiviral responses in this organism. We show that viral infection upregulates the transcription of RNAi components, and that Dicer proteins (DCL-1, DCL-2) and an Argonaute (QDE-2) participate in suppression of viral replication. Our study thus establishes N. crassa as a model system for the study of host-virus interactions.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-020-19355-y
DO - 10.1038/s41467-020-19355-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 33159072
AN - SCOPUS:85095696342
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 11
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 5627
ER -