This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Infecting a maize plant is no simple task for a fungal pathogen such as Ustilago maydis. A group of researchers led by Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has now uncovered how the fungus detects that it has successfully entered its host.
This signal triggers changes in fungal growth, as the researchers report in Nature Communications. The fungus Ustilago maydis infects maize plants and causes corn smut. The disease produces large galls, particularly on maize cobs, in which the fungus forms spores.
Florian Altegoer leads a research group at the Institute of Microbiology at HHU, which is investigating the mechanisms underlying fungal infection. To establish an infection, the fungus must penetrate plant tissue and manipulate the host's growth. In order to colonize the host cell successfully, Ustilago maydis must also recognize when it has reached the environment inside the plant so that it can adjust its physiology and begin proliferating.
Altegoer and his team investigated how the corn smut fungus senses its arrival inside plant tissue and translates this signal into changes in growth. Researchers from the University of Göttingen, North Carolina State University in the U.S. and Imperial College London were also involved in the work. At the center of the study is Gpe1, a receptor located in the fungal cell membrane.
Gpe1 belongs to a family of proteins known as G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). These receptors have been studied extensively in humans and are important targets for many medicines. Much less is known about their functions in fungi.
"We have identified a previously unknown fungal GPCR and uncovered an unusual mechanism by which it is activated," says Altegoer. During infection, the fungus secretes the protein Pit2 into its immediate surroundings. Hidden within Pit2 is a short peptide.
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