抄録
Fungi produce various secondary metabolites, and thus are exploited as a source of useful compounds. Studies of fungal genomes have revealed that fungi have the potential to produce more secondary metabolites than expected, as they have a large number of genes for secondary metabolism. To date, some knowledge on control of fungal secondary metabolite production by mycoviruses has accumulated. In this study, we evaluated the influence of mycoviruses on fungal secondary metabolism using a rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae that is infected with three types of mycoviruses: a totivirus, a chrysovirus, and a partitivirus. As a result, it was revealed that a mycotoxin tenuazonic acid was produced in a manner dependent on the totivirus infection. Transcriptome analysis revealed the regulator y mechanism under viral induction of tenuazonic acid: the totivirus activates the transcription factor gene TAS2 that upregulates the tenuazonic acid biosynthetic gene TAS1. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report that confirmed mycovirus-associated regulation of secondary metabolism at a transcriptional level. Our finding highlights the potential of mycoviruses as a epigenomic factor activating fungal secondary metabolism.
