Fig. 3.

Deletion of any of the 16 genes required for nonselective autophagy renders M. oryzae unable to cause rice blast disease. (A) Seedlings of rice cultivar CO-39 were inoculated with uniform conidial suspensions (1 × 10⁵ ml⁻¹) of Δku70, Guy11 (wt) and autophagy mutants ΔMoatg1, ΔMoatg2, ΔMoatg3, ΔMoatg4, ΔMoatg5, ΔMoatg6, ΔMoatg7 ΔMoatg8, ΔMoatg9, ΔMoatg10, ΔMoatg11, ΔMoatg12, ΔMoatg13, ΔMoatg15, ΔMoatg16, ΔMoatg17, and ΔMoatg18. Seedlings were incubated for 5 days to allow development of disease symptoms. Very reduced symptom development was observed on some plants sprayed with ΔMoatg18 conidia, but lesion density was significantly reduced compared to Guy-11 (P < 0.001). All other macroautophagy mutants were completely nonpathogenic. (B) Conidia were germinated on hydrophobic glass coverslips and incubated for 24 h to form appressoria. Micrograph shows conidial collapse in Guy11. Conidia of macroautophagy mutants such as ΔMgatg4 and ΔMgatg8 did not show conidial cell death (Scale bars, 10 μm.)