Aspergillus flavus and its main secondary metabolite AFB1 pose a serious threat to several important crops worldwide. Recently, it has been reported that some PHD family transcription factors are involved in the morphogenesis and AFB1 biological synthesis in A. flavus, but the role of Cti6, a PHD domain containing protein in A. flavus, is totally unknown. The study was designed to reveal the biological function of Cti6 in the fungus by deletion of cti6, and its two domains (PHD and Atrophin-1) through homologous recombination, respectively. The results showed that Cti6 might up-regulate the mycelium growth, conidiation, sclerotia formation and AFB1 biological synthesis of A. flavus by its PHD domain, while Atrophin-1 also improved the conidiation of the fungus. The qRT-PCR analysis showed that Cti6 increased the conidiation of the fungus through AbaA and BrlA mediated conidiation pathway, triggered the formation of sclerotia by orthodox sclerotia formation pathway, and improved the production of AFB1 by orthodox AFB1 synthesis pathway. Crops models analysis showed that A. flavus Cti6 plays vital role in colonization and the production of AFB1 on the host grains mainly via PHD domain. Bioinformatics analysis showed Cti6 is conservative in Aspergillus spp., and mCherry mediated subcellular localization showed that most Cti6 accumulated in the nuclei, which reflected that Cti6 performed its important biological function in the nuclei in Aspergillus spp.. The results of the current study elucidate the roles of PHD domain containing proteins in the mechanism of the infection of crops by A. flavus, and provided a novel target for effectively controlling the contamination of Aspergillus spp. to crops.

中文翻译：

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所述PHD转录因子Cti6涉及的真菌定殖和黄曲霉毒素B1生物合成黄曲霉

黄曲霉及其主要的次要代谢产物AFB1对全球几种重要农作物构成了严重威胁。近来，已经报道了一些PHD家族转录因子参与黄曲霉的形态发生和AFB1生物合成，但是完全未知Cti6的作用，Cti6是在黄曲霉中含有蛋白质的PHD结构域。该研究旨在通过删除cti6及其同源的两个域（PHD和Atrophin-1）来揭示Cti6在真菌中的生物学功能。结果表明，Cti6可能通过其PHD结构域上调了黄曲霉的菌丝生长，分生孢子，菌核形成和AFB1的生物合成，而Atrophin-1也改善了真菌的分生孢子。qRT-PCR分析表明，Cti6通过AbaA和BrlA介导的构象途径增加了真菌的构象，通过正统的菌核形成途径触发了菌核的形成，并通过正统的AFB1合成途径提高了AFB1的产生。作物模型分析表明，黄曲霉Cti6主要通过PHD域在定居和宿主颗粒上AFB1的产生中起着至关重要的作用。生物信息学分析表明，Cti6在曲霉属中是保守的，而mCherry介导的亚细胞定位表明大多数Cti6积累在核中，这反映出Cti6在曲霉属的核中发挥了重要的生物学功能。含PHD结构域蛋白在黄曲霉侵染农作物的机制中的作用，为有效控制曲霉菌的污染提供了新的靶标。庄稼。