Differential expression and gene correlation analyses reveal core CAZymes in Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. lycopersici exposed to mutagen and heat stress

Abstract

AbstractFusarium oxysporum f.sp. lycopersici is the casual organism of tomato wilt disease which is a devastating plant pathogen responsible for annual loss of this fruit crop. An important step in fungal growth and development is germination, that is transformation of dormant spores into a growing hypha. For this, a set of special type of enzymes known as CAZymes are required for construction and remodelling of polysaccharides and penetration into the host. This necessitates to understand the underlying mechanism of hyphal growth and the crucial CAZymes involved in the process. Therefore, a comparative transcriptomic study of F. oxysporum f.sp. lycopersici using publically available RNA‐seq data under two perturbed conditions was taken up to find out the core differentially expressed genes (DEGs) followed by CAZyme annotation and their co‐expression. Among these two perturbations, 514 core DEGs were found, from which 32 CAZymes were annotated, with majority of them being glycosyl hydrolases and glycosyl transferases. Most of these CAzymes were also found to be downregulated in both the stresses. Further, among these annotated DEGs, the interaction network revealed the association of CAZymes with zinc finger transcription factors, enzymes associated with fatty acid biosynthesis, and sulphur and citrate metabolism. Hence, in the present study, the key or core CAZymes and their association with other enzymes were revealed in the impaired fungus which are otherwise crucial for growth in normal conditions.