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Expression of the genes associated with pathogenesis in wild-type B05.10 strain and BcDIM5 knockout ΔBcDIM5-21 strains. Botrytis cinerea Bcsod1 (BC1G_00558), BcSpl1 (BC1G_02163), BcVeA (BC1G_02976), BcBOT2 (BC1G_06357), Bcmp3 (BC1G_07144), BcVELB (BC1G_11858), BcPKS (BC1G_15837), Bcbot1 (BC1G_16381).
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Histone methylation is widely present in animals, plants and fungi, and the methylation modification of histone H3 has important biological functions. Methylation of Lys9 of histone H3 (H3K9) has been proven to regulate chromatin structure, gene silencing, transcriptional activation, plant metabolism, and other processes. In this work, we investiga...
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... In S. pombe, the histone methyltransferase Clr4 is responsible for monomethylation, dimethylation, and trimethylation of H3K9 [42]. Moreover, the deletion of BcDim5 in B. cinerea resulted in the loss of H3K9me3 [28]. Similar to previous results, Western blot analysis indicates that H3K9me3 is nearly completely abolished in the SsDim5 knockout mutant, and restored in the complemented strain, suggesting that SsDim5 indeed functions as an H3K9 methyltransferase in vivo and affects H3K9me3 in S. sclerotiorum. ...
... The deletion mutant of FvDim5 in Fusarium graminearum (∆FvDim5) exhibited significant defects in conidiation, perithecium formation, and fungal virulence [29]. Similarly, the disruption of BcDim5 in B. cinerea led to a significant reduction in hyphal growth, conidiophore production, and sclerotium yield, accompanied by a decrease in virulence [28]. Undoubtedly, our research results once again confirm the conservation of Dim5 in facilitating the physiological function of pathogen infection. ...
Histone post-translational modification is one of the main mechanisms of epigenetic regulation, which plays a crucial role in the control of gene expression and various biological processes. However, whether or not it affects fungal virulence in Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is not clear. In this study, we identified and cloned the histone methyltransferase Defective in methylation 5 (Dim5) in S. sclerotiorum, which encodes a protein containing a typical SET domain. SsDim5 was found to be dynamically expressed during infection. Knockout experiment demonstrated that deletion of SsDim5 reduced the virulence in Ssdim5-1/Ssdim5-2 mutant strains, accompanied by a significant decrease in H3K9 trimethylation levels. Transcriptomic analysis further revealed the downregulation of genes associated with mycotoxins biosynthesis in SsDim5 deletion mutants. Additionally, the absence of SsDim5 affected the fungus’s response to oxidative and osmotic, as well as cellular integrity. Together, our results indicate that the H3K9 methyltransferase SsDim5 is essential for H3K9 trimethylation, regulating fungal virulence throug mycotoxins biosynthesis, and the response to environmental stresses in S. sclerotiorum.
... H3K9 methylation is facilitated by specific proteins, including Clr4 (Cryptic loci regulator 4) in Schizosaccharomyces pombe and Dim5 (Defective in methylation 5) in Neurospora crassa [19]. In Botrytis cinerea, a plant pathogenic fungus, the absence of the Dim5 gene results in a significant reduction of H3K9me3, causing the downregulation of pathogenic genes related to host signal perception, host tissue colonization, stress response, toxin synthesis, and host immune response [20]. In the maize pathogen Fusarium verticillioides, disruption of Dim5 significantly reduces H3K9me3 levels, leading to a pronounced decrease in fungal virulence, accompanied by an unexpected increase in osmotic stress tolerance and expression of melanin synthesis genes [21]. ...
... In S. pombe, the histone methyltransferase Clr4 is responsible for monomethylation, dimethylation, and trimethylation of H3K9 [35]. Moreover, deletion of BcDim5 in B. cinerea resulted in the loss of H3K9me3 [20]. Similar to previous results, western blot analysis indicates that H3K9me3 is nearly completely abolished in the SsDim5 knockout mutant, and restored in the complemented strain, suggesting that SsDim5 indeed functions as an H3K9 methyltransferase in vivo and affects H3K9me3 in S. sclerotiorum. ...
... The deletion mutant of FvDim5 in Fusarium graminearum (ΔFvDim5) exhibited significant defects in conidiation, perithecium formation, and fungal virulence [21]. Similarly, the disruption of BcDim5 in B. cinerea led to a significant reduction in hyphal growth, conidiophore production, and sclerotium yield, accompanied by a decrease in virulence [20]. Undoubtedly, our research results once again confirm the conservation of Dim5 in facilitating the physiological function of pathogen infection. ...
Histone post-translational modification is one of the main mechanisms of epigenetic regulation, which plays a crucial role in the control of gene expression and various biological processes. However, whether or not it affects fungal virulence is not clear in Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. In this study, we identified and cloned the histone methyltransferase Defective in methylation 5 (Dim5) in S. sclerotiorum, which encodes a protein containing a typical SET domain. SsDim5 was found to be dynamically expressed during infection. Knockout experiment demonstrated that deletion of SsDim5 reduced the virulence in Ssdim5-1/Ssdim5-2 mutant strains, accompanied by a significant decrease in H3K9 trimethylation levels. Transcriptomic analysis further revealed the downregulation of genes associated with mycotoxins biosynthesis in SsDim5 deletion mutants. Additionally, the absence of SsDim5 affected the fungus's response to oxidative and osmotic, as well as cellular integrity. Together, our results indicate that the H3K9 methyltransferase SsDim5 is essential for H3K9 trimethylation, which regulating fungal virulence to host plants through impacting on mycotoxins biosynthesis, and the response to environmental stresses in S. sclerotiorum.
... Normal genome-wide H3K9me distribution is essential for both pathogens and symbionts in fungi-host interactions [143]. In B. cinerea, loss of DIM5 results in nearly abolished H3K9me3 and causes downregulation of pathogenicity genes associated with host signal sensing, host tissue colonization, stress response, toxin synthesis, and response to host immunity [148]. In the plant endosymbiotic fungus Epichloë festucae, H3K9me3 catalyzed by Clr4 (KMT1), together with H3K27me3, is required for the transcription of symbiosis-specific genes associated with the biosynthesis of loliterms and ergot alkaloids, which are silenced under nonsymbiotic culture conditions [149]. ...
As a sessile organism, plants have evolved a complex and sophisticated immune system to defend against various pathogenic microbes effectively. However, microbes have also developed complicated and delicate strategies to suppress host immunity and successfully colonize the host. Dynamic plant‒pathogen interactions require rapid and fine-tuned regulation of their gene expression. Increasing evidence has revealed that epigenetic regulation plays key roles in plant defense-related transcriptional reprogramming, as well as microbe pathogenicity. In this review, we summarize and highlight the current progress in understanding the roles of epigenetic regulation and factors, including DNA/RNA modification, histone modification, chromatin remodeling and noncoding RNAs, in plant immunity, phytopathogen pathogenicity and their interactions. We also discuss that epigenetic regulation emerges as an efficient strategy for crop breeding and plant disease control.
... Even though TE activity is beneficial to a certain extent, TE overactivity can be detrimental to genome stability, and, therefore, TEs are generally epigenetically silenced [107][108][109][110]. In fungi, genomic regions that are enriched for TEs are often epigenetically silenced by H3K9me3 and cytosine methylation (5-methylcytocine, 5mC) [111][112][113][114][115]. Similarly, in V. dahliae we found that H3K9me3 and 5mC co-localize on TE-rich genomic regions (Fig 1A) [27,36,37]. ...
Through the association of protein complexes to DNA, the eukaryotic nuclear genome is broadly organized into open euchromatin that is accessible for enzymes acting on DNA and condensed heterochromatin that is inaccessible. Chemical and physical alterations to chromatin may impact its organization and functionality and are therefore important regulators of nuclear processes. Studies in various fungal plant pathogens have uncovered an association between chromatin organization and expression of in planta-induced genes that are important for pathogenicity. This review discusses chromatin-based regulation mechanisms as determined in the fungal plant pathogen Verticillium dahliae and relates the importance of epigenetic transcriptional regulation and other nuclear processes more broadly in fungal plant pathogens.
... Methylation of Lys9 of histone H3 (H3K9) is known to regulate chromatin structure, gene silencing, transcriptional activation, metabolism, and other processes(Lan and Shi, 2009, Liu et al., 2010). BcDIM5 (H3K9 methyltransferase) knockout transformants of Botrytis cinerea (necrotrophic fungus having dicotyledonous hosts) revealed reduced the hyphal growth rate and production of conidiophores and sclerotia(Zhang et al., 2016). Pathogenicity assays revealed thatBcDIM5 (H3K9 methyltransferase) gene regulates the expression of some pathogenic genes and is necessary for full virulence of B. cinerea(Zhang et al., 2016).In our study, we found exclusive abundance of four "Histone-lysine N-methyltransferase" proteins (Q4WTT2, Q1DU03, Q8X0S9, and Q4PB36) in CFS1 and CFS2, suggesting their contribution in pathogen virulence and red rot disease development in sugarcane. ...
... BcDIM5 (H3K9 methyltransferase) knockout transformants of Botrytis cinerea (necrotrophic fungus having dicotyledonous hosts) revealed reduced the hyphal growth rate and production of conidiophores and sclerotia(Zhang et al., 2016). Pathogenicity assays revealed thatBcDIM5 (H3K9 methyltransferase) gene regulates the expression of some pathogenic genes and is necessary for full virulence of B. cinerea(Zhang et al., 2016).In our study, we found exclusive abundance of four "Histone-lysine N-methyltransferase" proteins (Q4WTT2, Q1DU03, Q8X0S9, and Q4PB36) in CFS1 and CFS2, suggesting their contribution in pathogen virulence and red rot disease development in sugarcane. ...
A highly virulent Colletotrichum falcatum pathotype (CF08) was cultured in nutrient deficit media with fine-cut sugarcane stalks of red rot susceptible variety (CoJ 64). The mycelium was collected for the analysis of whole proteome using LCMS/MS. In-silico analysis was performed to identify the exclusive and differentially abundant proteins from whole proteomes of C. falcatum samples cultured with sugarcane (CFS1 and CFS2). Whole proteome analysis revealed a relatively higher number of peptide identities/proteins in CFS2 (2233), followed by CFS1 (1911), and CFC (control) with least number of proteins (1808). Compared to control, CFS1 and CFS2 samples of C. falcatum had plenty of exclusively abundant proteins like ABC transporters, glucose transporter, actin cytoskeleton-regulatory complex proteins, antimicrobial peptides, autophagy-related proteins, chitin synthase, dicer-like proteins, histone-lysine N-methyltransferase proteins, myosin-1 proteins, polyketide synthase proteins, and nonribosomal peptide synthase proteins which are involved in the process of fungal virulence/pathogenicity. In this manuscript, we report the first draft of C. falcatum proteome (whole proteome) which has been successfully submitted to ProteomeXchange Consortium via the PRIDE partner repository with the dataset identifier PXD033368.
... While approaches that mimic environmental conditions result in a native regulatory response of BGCs, the disruption of global regulatory mechanisms can lead to the syn-thesis of cryptic compounds that emerge due to uncoordinated regulation of genes or by bio-transformation of the inhibitors [332,344,374]. Additionally, chemical or genetic manipulation of globally active chromatin remodelers can be lethal [315] or lead to phenotypically aberrant transformants (i.e., growth, morphology, conidiation, . . . ) [308,339,[375][376][377]. All these factors can result in a substantial change of the whole metabolome [321,346] and transcriptome [326,351] which makes interpretation challenging, even with software solutions that assist with the detection of degradation products or bio-transformed moieties such as BioTransformer [378]. ...
Fungal species have the capability of producing an overwhelming diversity of bioactive substances that can have beneficial but also detrimental effects on human health. These so-called secondary metabolites naturally serve as antimicrobial “weapon systems”, signaling molecules or developmental effectors for fungi and hence are produced only under very specific environmental conditions or stages in their life cycle. However, as these complex conditions are difficult or even impossible to mimic in laboratory settings, only a small fraction of the true chemical diversity of fungi is known so far. This also implies that a large space for potentially new pharmaceuticals remains unexplored. We here present an overview on current developments in advanced methods that can be used to explore this chemical space. We focus on genetic and genomic methods, how to detect genes that harbor the blueprints for the production of these compounds (i.e., biosynthetic gene clusters, BGCs), and ways to activate these silent chromosomal regions. We provide an in-depth view of the chromatin-level regulation of BGCs and of the potential to use the CRISPR/Cas technology as an activation tool.
... In the past 25 years, since the identification of the first histone acetyltransferase enzyme from Tetrahymena thermophila (Brownell and Allis, 1995;Brownell et al., 1996), the field of histone modification has grown quickly. As one of the most important ways of histone modification, histone methylation has been shown to play critical roles in fungal growth, cell development, multi-stress resistance, pathogenicity, and photoperiod regulation (Palmer et al., 2008;Lee et al., 2009;Connolly et al., 2013;Minh et al., 2015;Liu et al., 2016;Zhang et al., 2016;Gu et al., 2017a,b). ...
... In Beauveria bassiana, SET1/KMT2-governed H3K4 methylation coordinates the lifecycle of this fungal insect pathogen (Ren et al., 2021). In Botrytis cinerea and Fusarium verticillioides, H3K9 methyltransferase regulates pathogenicity, fungal development, and osmotic stress responses (Zhang et al., 2016;Gu et al., 2017a). In Fusarium fujikuroi, H3K36 methyltransferase Set2 is involved in regulating vegetative growth, sporogenesis, biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, and pathogenicity (Janevska et al., 2018). ...
... Histone methylation level manifested by HMTs and HDMs dynamically changes for transcriptional regulation of specific genes. Previous studies revealed that HMTs and HDMs are required for vegetative growth, cell development, multi-stress resistance, secondary metabolite biosynthesis, or pathogenicity in fungi (Connolly et al., 2013;Minh et al., 2015;Zhang et al., 2016;Gu et al., 2017a;Kim et al., 2021;Ren et al., 2021). However, studies of histone methylation are still rarely reported in phytopathogenic fungi, although it has been extensively analyzed in model species. ...
Histone methylation, which is critical for transcriptional regulation and various biological processes in eukaryotes, is a reversible dynamic process regulated by histone methyltransferases (HMTs) and histone demethylases (HDMs). This study determined the function of 5 HMTs (AaDot1, AaHMT1, AaHnrnp, AaSet1, and AaSet2) and 1 HDMs (AaGhd2) in the phytopathogenic fungus Alternaria alternata by analyzing targeted gene deletion mutants. The vegetative growth, conidiation, and pathogenicity of ∆AaSet1 and ∆AaSet2 were severely inhibited indicating that AaSet1 and AaSet2 play critical roles in cell development in A. alternata. Multiple stresses analysis revealed that both AaSet1 and AaSet2 were involved in the adaptation to cell wall interference agents and osmotic stress. Meanwhile, ∆AaSet1 and ∆AaSet2 displayed serious vegetative growth defects in sole carbon source medium, indicating that AaSet1 and AaSet2 play an important role in carbon source utilization. In addition, ∆AaSet2 colony displayed white in color, while the wild-type colony was dark brown, indicating AaSet2 is an essential gene for melanin biosynthesis in A. alternata. AaSet2 was required for the resistance to oxidative stress. On the other hand, all of ∆AaDot1, ∆AaHMT1, and ∆AaGhd2 mutants displayed wild-type phenotype in vegetative growth, multi-stress resistance, pathogenicity, carbon source utilization, and melanin biosynthesis. To explore the regulatory mechanism of AaSet1 and AaSet2, RNA-seq of these mutants and wild-type strain was performed. Phenotypes mentioned above correlated well with the differentially expressed genes in ∆AaSet1 and ∆AaSet2 according to the KEGG and GO enrichment results. Overall, our study provides genetic evidence that defines the central role of HMTs and HDMs in the pathological and biological functions of A. alternata.
... Despite the intensive studies in model yeast, catalytic activities and biological effects of KMT1, KMT2 and KMT3 enzymes in filamentous fungal pathogens have been explored only in recent years. In Botrytis cinerea, H3K9me3 was nearly abolished due to lossof-function mutation of Dim5 (BcDIM5) orthologous to Clr4 (KMT1) in fission yeast, leading to reduced virulence and marked defects in hyphal growth, conidiation and sclerotia formation [26]. Likewise, attenuated H3K9me3 led to defects in conidiation and perithecium production, reduced virulence, increased osmotolerance and hyper-phosphorylated Hog1 when Dim5 lost function in Fusarium verticillioides [27]. ...
... Overall, the main KMT1, KMT2 and KMT3 enzymes characterized in the present and previous studies [39,40] play important, but differential, roles in orchestrating cellular processes and events associated with B. bassiana's host infection, pathogenesis, virulence, and conidiation required for survival/dispersal in host habitats, as seen in the plant-pathogenic fungi B. cinerea [26], F. verticillioides [27,28,31], F. fujikuroi [29,32] and M. oryzae [30,33]. Notably, all of the 'H3 lysine-specific' KMTs have not only conserved but also noncanonical catalytic activities in B. bassiana. ...
Set2 and Ash1 are histone methyltransferases (KMTs) in the KMT3 family normally used to catalyze methylation of histone H3K36 (H3K36me) but remain unexplored in fungal insect pathogens. Here, we report broader/greater roles of Set2 and Ash1 in mono-/di-/trimethylation (me1/ me2/me3) of H3K4 than of H3K36 in Beauveria bassiana and function similarly to Set1/KMT2, which has been reported to catalyze H3K4me3 as an epigenetic mark of cre1 (carbon catabolite repressor) to upregulate the classes I and II hydrophobin genes hyd1 and hyd2 required for conidial hydrophobicity and adherence to insect cuticle. H3K4me3 was more attenuated than H3K36me3 in the absence of set2 (72% versus 67%) or ash1 (92% versus 12%), leading to sharply repressed or nearly abolished expression of cre1, hyd1 andhyd2, as well as reduced hydrophobicity. Consequently, the delta-set2 and delta-ash1 mutants were differentially compromised in radial growth on various media or under different stresses, aerial conidiation under normal culture conditions, virulence, and cellular events crucial for normal cuticle infection and hemocoel colonization, accompanied by transcriptional repression of subsets of genes involved in or required for asexual development and multiple stress responses. These findings unravel novel roles of Set2 and Ash1 in the co-catalysis of usually Set1-reliant H3K4me3 required for fungal insect-pathogenic lifestyle.
... This domain architecture is known from other orthologs to be required for full functionality of Kmt1 ( Figure 1A) (Dillon et al., 2005). Orthologs of Kmt1 have also been studied in other fungi including A. nidulans clrD (Reyes-Dominguez et al., 2010), E. festucae clrD (Chujo and Scott, 2014), B. cinerea BcDim5 (Zhang et al., 2016) as well as the FFSC member F. verticillioides FvDim5 (Gu et al., 2017). No KMT1 ortholog is present in the budding yeast S. cerevisiae, but there is one in the fission yeast S. pombe i.e., Clr4 (Nakayama et al., 2001). ...
... FmKmt1 is largely dispensable for wild type-like vegetative growth in F. mangiferae with an observed radial growth reduction of about 10-15% on complete and minimal media, respectively. These findings are in line with studies on A. fumigatus, F. verticillioides, B. cinerea, or M. oryzae (Palmer et al., 2008;Pham et al., 2015;Zhang et al., 2016;Gu et al., 2017), in which deletion of the respective homologs, AfclrD, FvDIM5, BcDIM5, and MoKMT1, respectively, also had only a slight impact on vegetative growth. No growth defect was detectable for A. nidulans clrD on solid as well as in liquid media (Reyes-Dominguez et al., 2010). ...
... FmKmt1 influences asexual development in F. mangiferae, as conidiation was reduced to about 70% of the wild type. These results are in agreement with F. verticillioides, A. fumigatus, and B. cinerea as lack of the FmKMT1 homologs FvDIM5, AfclrD, and BcDIM5 resulted in declined conidiation (Palmer et al., 2008;Zhang et al., 2016;Gu et al., 2017). Contrary to this, asexual development remained unaffected upon deletion of MoKMT1 and clrD in M. oryzae and A. nidulans, respectively (Reyes-Dominguez et al., 2010;Pham et al., 2015). ...
The phytopathogenic fungus Fusarium mangiferae belongs to the Fusarium fujikuroi species complex (FFSC). Members of this group cause a wide spectrum of devastating diseases on diverse agricultural crops. F. mangiferae is the causal agent of the mango malformation disease (MMD) and as such detrimental for agriculture in the southern hemisphere. During plant infection, the fungus produces a plethora of bioactive secondary metabolites (SMs), which most often lead to severe adverse defects on plants health. Changes in chromatin structure achieved by posttranslational modifications (PTM) of histones play a key role in regulation of fungal SM biosynthesis. Posttranslational tri-methylation of histone 3 lysine 9 (H3K9me3) is considered a hallmark of heterochromatin and established by the SET-domain protein Kmt1. Here, we show that FmKmt1 is involved in H3K9me3 in F. mangiferae. Loss of FmKmt1 only slightly though significantly affected fungal hyphal growth and stress response and is required for wild type-like conidiation. While FmKmt1 is largely dispensable for the biosynthesis of most known SMs, removal of FmKMT1 resulted in an almost complete loss of fusapyrone and deoxyfusapyrone, γ-pyrones previously only known from Fusarium semitectum. Here, we identified the polyketide synthase (PKS) FmPKS40 to be involved in fusapyrone biosynthesis, delineate putative cluster borders by co-expression studies and provide insights into its regulation.
... For example, DNA methylation inhibits transcription elongation in N. crassa and Magnaporthe oryzae [42,43]. In Botrytis cinerea, loss-of-function mutation of DIM5 (BcDIM5) resulted in nearly abolished H3K9me3 and reduced plant pathogenicity as well as marked defects in hyphal growth, conidiation and sclerotia formation although such defects were not present in the absence of hp1 or dim2 [44]. In Fusarium verticillioides, H3K9me3 was largely attenuated by dim5 disruption, leading to defects in conidiation and perithecium production, attenuated virulence, increased osmotolerance and hyper-phosphorylated Hog1 [45]. ...
... This study sought to elucidate roles of DIM5/KMT1 in Beauveria bassiana as a main source of wide-spectrum fungal insecticides by phenotypic and transcriptomic analyses of dim5 mutants. Unexpectedly, we found not only a conserved activity of DIM5 to H3K9me3, as seen in yeast and filamentous fungi [15,44,45], but also its noncanonical activities to H3K4me and H3K36me usually mediated by SET1/KMT2 and SET2/KMT3, respectively [3][4][5]. The DIM5-dependent multisite H3me proved essential for the fungal asexual cycle in vivo and in vitro and genomic stability, as presented below. ...
... The ratios of lysine-specific signals over those of nuclear H3 were lowered significantly (Tukey's HSD, P< 0.01) by 25% for H3K9me1, 50% for H3K9me2, 97% for H3K9me3, 69% for H3K4me1, 33% for H3K4me2, and 31% for H3K36me2 in the Δdim5 mutant, and the lowered ratios were well restored by targeted dim5 complementation into the mutant (Figure 1(e)). These data highlighted not only a conserved activity of DIM5 to H3K9me in B. bassiana, as seen in plant-pathogenic fungi [44,45], but its noncanonical activities to H3K4me1/me2 and H3K36me2. The DIM5-dependent multisite H3me suggested an unusual role of DIM5 in sustaining the fungal genome stability and lifecycle. ...
Mono-, di- and tri-methylation of histone H3 Lys 9, Lys 4, and Lys 36 (H3K_me1/me2/me3) required for mediation of DNA-based cellular events in eukaryotes usually rely upon the activities of histone lysine methyltransferases (KMTs) classified to the KMT1, KMT2, and KMT3 families, respectively. Here, an H3K9-specific DIM5/KMT1 orthologue, which lacks a C-terminal post-SET domain and localizes mainly in nucleus, is reported to have both conserved and noncanonical roles in methylating the H3 core lysines in Beauveria bassiana, an insect-pathogenic fungus serving as a main source of wide-spectrum fungal insecticides. Disruption of dim5 led to abolishment of H3K9me3 and marked attenuation of H3K4me1/me2, H3K9me1/me2 and H3K36me2. Consequently, the Δdim5 mutant lost the whole insect pathogenicity through normal cuticle infection, and was compromised severely in virulence through cuticle-bypassing infection (hemocoel injection) and also in a series of cellular events critical for the fungal virulence and lifecycle in vivo and in vitro, including reduced hyphal growth, blocked conidiation, impeded proliferation in vivo, altered carbohydrate epitopes, disturbed cell cycle, reduced biosynthesis and secretion of cuticle-degrading enzymes, and increased sensitivities to various stresses. Among 1,201 dysregulated genes (up/down ratio: 712:489) associated with those phenotypic changes, 92 (up/down ratio: 59:33) encode transcription factors and proteins or enzymes involved in posttranslational modifications, implying that the DIM5-methylated H3 core lysines could act as preferential marks of those transcription-active genes crucial for global gene regulation. These findings uncover a novel scenario of DIM5 and its indispensability for insect-pathogenic lifestyle and genome stability of B. bassiana.
