Jun Yuan, Zhong Chen, Zhiqiang Guo, Ding Li, Feng Zhang, Jiaojiao Shen, Yi Zhang, Shihua Wang, Zhenhong Zhuang
Abstract
As an opportunistic pathogen, Aspergillus flavus is one of the major causes of food contamination around the world. In this study, pbsB gene knockout mutant (ΔpbsB) and pbsB overexpression strain (OE) of A. flavus were constructed by homologous recombination. The results showed that the mycelia growth, conidiation, and the formation of sclerotia in ΔpbsB mutant were significantly suppressed, and up-regulated in OE strian compared to wild-type strain (WT). Q-PCR analysis showed that PbsB regulated the sclerotia formation through sclerotia related gene nsdC. With TLC and qRT-PCR analysis, it was found that PbsB up-regulated the bio-synthesis of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) through regulatory gene aflR and structural gene aflC, aflD, aflK, and aflQ in the aflatoxin gene cluster. In osmotic stress response analysis, ΔpbsB mutant was significantly more sensitive to osmotic pressure with 1.2 mol/L sorbitol, compared to WT and OE strains. In virulence analysis, the infection capacity of ΔpbsB strain to peanut and maize kernels decreased dramatically, and significantly fewer spores and lesser mycelia were produced in ΔpbsB strain on the surface of peanut and maize kernels, and the infection capacity of OE strain to kernels increased significantly compared with WT strain. The AFB1 bio-synthesis ability of A. flavus in crop invasion models was also found to be coincide with the expression level of pbsB. All the results of the study shows that, as a MAPKK, PbsB is critical for growth and virulence in A. flavus, and lay a theoretical foundation for the prevention and control of A. flavus contamination.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 May 2018.
All research outputs
#15,463,107
of 23,056,273 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology
#3,626
of 6,532 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#207,716
of 328,263 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology
#80
of 116 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,056,273 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 32nd percentile – i.e., 32% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 6,532 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 5.4. This one is in the 44th percentile – i.e., 44% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 328,263 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 36th percentile – i.e., 36% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 116 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 31st percentile – i.e., 31% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
