Plant-pathogenic fungi are a significant threat to economic and food security worldwide. Novel protection strategies are required and therefore it is critical we understand the mechanisms by which these pathogens cause disease. Virulence factors and pathogenicity genes have been identified, but in many cases their roles remain elusive. It is becoming increasingly clear that gene regulation is vital to enable plant infection and transcription factors play an essential role. Efforts to determine their regulatory functions in plant-pathogenic fungi have expanded since the annotation of fungal genomes revealed the ubiquity of transcription factors from a broad range of families. This review establishes the significance of transcription factors as regulatory elements in plant-pathogenic fungi and provides a systematic overview of those that have been functionally characterized. Detailed analysis is provided on regulators from well-characterized families controlling various aspects of fungal metabolism, development, stress tolerance, and the production of virulence factors such as effectors and secondary metabolites. This covers conserved transcription factors with either specialized or nonspecialized roles, as well as recently identified regulators targeting key virulence pathways. Fundamental knowledge of transcription factor regulation in plant-pathogenic fungi provides avenues to identify novel virulence factors and improve our understanding of the regulatory networks linked to pathogen evolution, while transcription factors can themselves be specifically targeted for disease control. Areas requiring further insight regarding the molecular mechanisms and/or specific classes of transcription factors are identified, and direction for future investigation is presented.

中文翻译：

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植物病原真菌毒力的转录因子控制

植物病原真菌对全球经济和粮食安全构成重大威胁。需要新的保护策略，因此了解这些病原体引起疾病的机制至关重要。毒力因子和致病基因已被鉴定，但在许多情况下它们的作用仍然难以捉摸。越来越清楚的是，基因调控对于植物感染至关重要，而转录因子发挥着重要作用。自从真菌基因组注释揭示了来自广泛家族的转录因子的普遍存在以来，确定它们在植物病原真菌中的调节功能的努力已经扩大。本综述确立了转录因子作为植物病原真菌中调控元件的重要性，并对那些已进行功能表征的转录因子进行了系统概述。对来自控制真菌代谢、发育、胁迫耐受性以及毒力因子（例如效应物和次级代谢物）等毒力因子的产生的各个方面的特征明确的家族的调节因子进行了详细分析。这涵盖了具有专门或非专门作用的保守转录因子，以及最近确定的针对关键毒力途径的调节因子。植物病原真菌转录因子调控的基础知识为识别新的毒力因子和提高我们对与病原体进化相关的调控网络的理解提供了途径，而转录因子本身可以专门用于疾病控制。确定了需要进一步了解分子机制和/或特定类别转录因子的领域，并提出了未来研究的方向。