Poster
Fantin Mesny
University of Zürich
Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Valentina Wolf
University of Lund
Lund, Skane Lan, Sweden
Wilko Punt
University of Cologne
Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Jiyeun Park
University of Cologne
Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Ana Lopez-Moral
Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Cologne
Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Anton Kraege (he/him/his)
University of Cologne
Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Bart Thomma (he/him/his)
CEPLAS/University of Cologne
Cologne, GERMANY
Plant-pathogenic fungi secrete effector proteins that support plant tissue colonization by modulating host physiology. However, increasing evidence points to another crucial function of fungal effectors, namely in microbial antagonism. This antagonism supports host colonization by breaching the protective microbiota that plants assemble on their tissues. As only relatively few effectors with antimicrobial activities have been characterized, their occurrence throughout the fungal kingdom remains enigmatic. We developed AMAPEC, a highly accurate machine learning predictor to annotate candidate antimicrobials in fungal secretomes based on protein physicochemical properties. We predict that fungi secrete numerous antimicrobial proteins, regardless of their phylogeny and lifestyle. Given their remarkable conservation across phyla, antimicrobial effectors likely have ancient origins, predating the evolution of fungal symbioses with land plants. Therefore, we hypothesize that plant-pathogenic fungi evolved host-manipulating effectors from ancestral antimicrobial proteins. In line with this hypothesis, AMAPEC predicts antimicrobial activities for numerous effectors with known immunomodulatory functions. We currently try to experimentally validate this prediction for selected effectors and study the role of these effectors in microbial competition. Our findings shed a new light on the evolution of fungal effectors and their key roles in microbial antagonism and host colonization.