Fig. 3. Critical roles of PSC editing in sexual development.

(A) Violin plots comparing editing levels of the PSC-editing sites and all the A-to-I editing sites identified in F. graminearum. The P value from the two-tailed Wilcoxon rank sum test is indicated. (B) Sexual developmental stages involved by PSC pseudogenes and their PSC editing. Gene names are given at the stages where mutant phenotypes occur in the corresponding mutants. PSC-editing sites that are not essential for gene functions are colored blue. (C) Mating cultures of the uneditable (TAA) transformants of germ-needed PSC pseudogenes were examined for perithecium formation (scale bar, 0.2 mm) and/or asci and ascospores morphology (scale bar, 20 μm) at 7 dpf. (D) The diameter of perithecia produced by the marked strains at 7 dpf. (E) The number of asci per perithecium produced by the marked strains at 5 dpf. For (D) and (E), mean and SD were calculated with data from three independent replicates (n = 3), each with at least 17 perithecia examined. Different letters indicate significant differences based on one-way ANOVA followed by Turkey’s multiple range test (P < 0.05). (F) The percentage of asci containing a specific number of ascospores produced by the marked strains at 7 dpf. The data are presented as the mean calculated from three independent replicates (n = 3), each with at least 80 asci examined.