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Plants send small RNAs in extracellular vesicles to fungal pathogen to silence virulence genes

2018; American Association for the Advancement of Science; Volume: 360; Issue: 6393 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1126/science.aar4142

1095-9203

Qiang Cai, Lulu Qiao, Ming Wang, Baoye He, Feng‐Mao Lin, Jared Palmquist, Sienna-Da Huang, Hailing Jin,

Plant pathogens and resistance mechanisms

Some pathogens and pests deliver small RNAs (sRNAs) into host cells to suppress host immunity. Conversely, hosts also transfer sRNAs into pathogens and pests to inhibit their virulence. Although sRNA trafficking has been observed in a wide variety of interactions, how sRNAs are transferred, especially from hosts to pathogens and pests, is still unknown. Here, we show that host Arabidopsis cells secrete exosome-like extracellular vesicles to deliver sRNAs into fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea These sRNA-containing vesicles accumulate at the infection sites and are taken up by the fungal cells. Transferred host sRNAs induce silencing of fungal genes critical for pathogenicity. Thus, Arabidopsis has adapted exosome-mediated cross-kingdom RNA interference as part of its immune responses during the evolutionary arms race with the pathogen.