近日，国际著名杂志PloS Pathogen在线刊登了美国普渡大学和西北农林科技大学联合的最新研究成果“Functional Analysis of the Kinome of the Wheat Scab Fungus Fusarium graminearum，”，文章中，作者对小麦斑点病真菌-禾谷镰刀菌中的蛋白激酶进行了全面的功能分析，并且得出结论，很多蛋白激酶基因对于禾谷镰刀菌的发育以及致病性不可或缺。
文章的作者是美国普渡大学植物与植物病理系的许金荣教授，国家“千人计划”的入选者，现为西北农林科技大学植物保护学院二级教授，许金荣教授至今已发表60余篇期刊文章，在国际知名杂志Science、Nature、PNAS、Genes & Development、Plant Cell等上均有文章发表。
在真核生物中，通过蛋白激酶所进行的反向蛋白磷酸化涉及生长和发展的调节以及对环境刺激的反应，在细胞中大约有30%的蛋白会进行磷酸化，真核生物蛋白激酶（PK）超家族包含了常规和非常规的蛋白激酶，常规的蛋白激酶根据氨基酸序列、结构域以及调节模式可以分为8组，分别为AGC，GAMK，CK1，CMGC，RGC，STE，TK，TK1，带有保守激酶结构域的蛋白激酶并没有被分类进上面这8组，而被认为是其它的常规蛋白激酶；非常规蛋白激酶缺少显著的序列，按照蛋白酶的活性被分为Alpha，PIKK，PDHK以及RIO四组。
文章中，研究者从禾谷镰刀菌中鉴定出了116个假设的蛋白激酶基因，尽管这些基因中有20个是最基本的基因，其余96个基因，研究者破坏其功能得到了96个基因的突变体，各个基因的突变体的表现为生长缺陷，分生孢子受精作用缺失，发芽缺失，不能进行压力反应，植物感染能力缺失等表型；42个蛋白激酶突变体毒力明显降低，不具有致病性，45个突变体不能够进行有性生殖，这些基因中，两个对丝状真菌特殊的基因被证明在菌丝生长和编码新的毒性因子方面并不是必要的；
作者运用interlog的方法预测了禾谷镰刀菌中PK-PK和PK-蛋白质之间的作用网络图谱，其中含有两个Cdc2激酶基因和极光激酶基因，作者最终的研究结果指出，在禾谷镰刀菌中，蛋白激酶基因对于该菌的多重发育和植物感染过程有非常重要的作用。（生物谷Bioon.com）
（T.Shen编译 如有问题请及时指正）
doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1002460
PMC:
PMID:
Functional Analysis of the Kinome of the Wheat Scab Fungus Fusarium graminearum
Chenfang Wang1, Shijie Zhang1, Rui Hou1, Zhongtao Zhao1, Qian Zheng1, Qijun Xu1, Dawei Zheng1, Guanghui Wang1,2, Huiquan Liu1, Xuli Gao1, Ji-Wen Ma1, H. Corby Kistler3, Zhensheng Kang1*, Jin-Rong Xu1,2*
As in other eukaryotes, protein kinases play major regulatory roles in filamentous fungi. Although the genomes of many plant pathogenic fungi have been sequenced, systematic characterization of their kinomes has not been reported. The wheat scab fungus Fusarium graminearum has 116 protein kinases (PK) genes. Although twenty of them appeared to be essential, we generated deletion mutants for the other 96 PK genes, including 12 orthologs of essential genes in yeast. All of the PK mutants were assayed for changes in 17 phenotypes, including growth, conidiation, pathogenesis, stress responses, and sexual reproduction. Overall, deletion of 64 PK genes resulted in at least one of the phenotypes examined, including three mutants blocked in conidiation and five mutants with increased tolerance to hyperosmotic stress. In total, 42 PK mutants were significantly reduced in virulence or non-pathogenic, including mutants deleted of key components of the cAMP signaling and three MAPK pathways. A number of these PK genes, including Fg03146 and Fg04770 that are unique to filamentous fungi, are dispensable for hyphal growth and likely encode novel fungal virulence factors. Ascospores play a critical role in the initiation of wheat scab. Twenty-six PK mutants were blocked in perithecia formation or aborted in ascosporogenesis. Additional 19 mutants were defective in ascospore release or morphology. Interestingly, F. graminearum contains two aurora kinase genes with distinct functions, which has not been reported in fungi. In addition, we used the interlog approach to predict the PK-PK and PK-protein interaction networks of F. graminearum. Several predicted interactions were verified with yeast two-hybrid or co-immunoprecipitation assays. To our knowledge, this is the first functional characterization of the kinome in plant pathogenic fungi. Protein kinase genes important for various aspects of growth, developmental, and infection processes in F. graminearum were identified in this study.
