Oil palm plays an essential role in securing the global vegetable oil supply, is prone to the stem rot disease caused by several basidiomycete species, especially Various mitigation efforts were initiated aiming to tackle the disease, including the study of the fungal pathogen at level. However, the functional genomic study protocol is unavailable for , which is required for validating the potential pathogenicity genes identified from this fungal species. This is the first report on the development of a molecular tool for gene manipulation study of () via RNAi-mediated gene silencing. Three Dicer and six Argonaute homologs were identified based on BLASTn analysis on genome database. Three hpRNA vectors corresponding to different regions of were prepared and transformed into to generate the RNAi- transformants. The RNAi- transformants were evaluated based on the growth rate, gene expression, biosynthesis of ergosterol and pathogenesis towards oil palm. The RNAi- transformants have shown reduced growth, expression of and ergosterol production compared with the wild type. Three representative transformants with the least gene expression were subjected to oil palm inoculation study. Results showed that the oil palm plantlets inoculated with RNAi- transformant (TGL20–2–4) demonstrated significant reduced infection symptoms at the initial stage of the study. On average, the RNAi- transformants (TGL20–2–4 and TGL20–3–1) inoculated with oil palm showed a significant reduction of gene expression and produced a lower amount of ergosterol as compared to the wild type. The knowledge generated from this study imparts the understanding on the correlation between gene expression and the biosynthesis of ergosterol and fungal pathogenicity. Furthermore, the gene manipulation tool developed in this study can be applied for functional study of other genes especially those that are involved in the fungal pathogenicity. Gene silencing of could be extended to inhibit infection in oil palm via host/spray-induced gene silencing.

中文翻译：

---

博宁灵芝羊毛甾醇14α-去甲基酶（GBERG11）基因沉默影响麦角甾醇生物合成和对油棕的致病性

油棕在确保全球植物油供应方面发挥着至关重要的作用，特别是容易发生由多种担子菌引起的茎腐病。为了应对这种疾病，人们发起了各种缓解措施，包括对真菌病原体进行水平研究。然而，功能基因组研究方案无法用于验证从该真菌物种中鉴定出的潜在致病性基因。这是第一份关于通过 RNAi 介导的基因沉默开发用于基因操纵研究的分子工具的报告。基于基因组数据库的 BLASTn 分析，鉴定出 3 个 Dicer 和 6 个 Argonaute 同源物。制备对应于不同区域的三个hpRNA载体并转化以产生RNAi转化体。根据生长速率、基因表达、麦角甾醇的生物合成和油棕发病机制对RNAi转化体进行评估。与野生型相比，RNAi转化体表现出生长、表达和麦角甾醇产生的减少。对具有最少基因表达的三个代表性转化体进行油棕接种研究。结果表明，接种 RNAi 转化体 (TGL20-2-4) 的油棕苗在研究初期表现出感染症状显着减轻。平均而言，与野生型相比，接种油棕的 RNAi 转化体（TGL20-2-4 和 TGL20-3-1）显示出基因表达显着降低，并且产生的麦角甾醇含量较低。这项研究产生的知识让人们了解基因表达与麦角甾醇生物合成和真菌致病性之间的相关性。此外，本研究开发的基因操作工具可应用于其他基因的功能研究，特别是那些涉及真菌致病性的基因。基因沉默可以扩展到通过宿主/喷雾诱导的基因沉默来抑制油棕的感染。