Mitophagy is a selective autophagy for the degradation of damaged or excessive mitochondria to maintain intracellular homeostasis. In Magnaporthe oryzae, a filamentous ascomycetous fungus that causes rice blast, the most devastating disease of rice, mitophagy occurs in the invasive hyphae to promote infection. To date, only a few proteins are known to participate in mitophagy and the mechanisms of mitophagy are largely unknown in pathogenic fungi. Here, by a yeast two‐hybrid screen with the core autophagy‐related protein MoAtg8 as a bait, we obtained a MoAtg8 interactor MoAti1 (MoAtg8‐interacting protein 1). Fluorescent observations and protease digestion analyses revealed that MoAti1 is primarily localized to the peripheral mitochondrial outer membrane and is responsible for recruiting MoAtg8 to mitochondria under mitophagy induction conditions. MoAti1 is specifically required for mitophagy, but not for macroautophagy and pexophagy. Infection assays suggested that MoAti1 is required for mitophagy in invasive hyphae during pathogenesis. Notably, no homologues of MoAti1 were found in rice and human protein databases, indicating that MoAti1 may be used as a potential target to control rice blast. By the host‐induced gene silencing (HIGS) strategy, transgenic rice plants targeted to silencing MoATI1 showed enhanced resistance against M. oryzae with unchanged agronomic traits. Our results suggest that MoATI1 is required for mitophagy and pathogenicity in M. oryzae and can be used as a target for reducing rice blast.

中文翻译：

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MoAti1 通过促进 MoAtg8 的募集来介导线粒体自噬，从而促进稻瘟病菌的侵袭性生长

线粒体自噬是一种选择性自噬，用于降解受损或过量的线粒体，以维持细胞内稳态。在稻瘟病菌，一种丝状子囊菌真菌，可引起稻瘟病，这是水稻最具破坏性的疾病，线粒体自噬发生在侵入菌丝中以促进感染。迄今为止，仅已知少数蛋白质参与线粒体自噬，并且病原真菌中线粒体自噬的机制很大程度上未知。在这里，通过以核心自噬相关蛋白MoAtg8为诱饵的酵母双杂交筛选，我们获得了MoAtg8相互作用蛋白MoAti1（MoAtg8相互作用蛋白1）。荧光观察和蛋白酶消化分析表明，MoAti1 主要定位于外周线粒体外膜，负责在线粒体自噬诱导条件下将 MoAtg8 招募到线粒体。MoAti1 是线粒体自噬所必需的，但巨自噬和 pexophagy 则不需要。感染测定表明，MoAti1 是发病过程中侵入性菌丝中线粒体自噬所必需的。值得注意的是，在水稻和人类蛋白质数据库中没有发现MoAti1的同源物，这表明MoAti1可能作为控制稻瘟病的潜在靶点。通过宿主诱导基因沉默（HIGS）策略，转基因水稻植株靶向沉默莫ATI1显示出增强的抵抗力米霉农艺性状未改变。我们的结果表明莫ATI1是线粒体自噬和致病性所必需的米霉并可作为减少稻瘟病的靶标。