Recently, a research entitled “The glycoside hydrolase 28 member  VdEPG1  is a virulence factor of  Verticillium dahliae  and interacts with the jasmonic acid pathway-related gene  GhOPR9 ” has been published by Molecular Plant Pathology. In this paper, researchers from Institute of Cotton Research (CCRI) reported that as a virulence factor,  VdEPG1 interacts with  GhOPR9    in regulating host resistance to Verticillium wilt, revealing the pathogenic mechanism of  V. dahliae  from a new perspective, enriching the theoretical system of interaction between pathogen and host.

Cotton Verticillium wilt caused by  V. dahliae  is a soil borne vascular bundle fungal disease. Due to the complex pathogenic mechanism of the pathogen, the interaction mechanism between the pathogen and the host is not clear, which has become a key problem for effective control of this disease. In this study,  VdEPG1  positively regulated the pathogenicity of  V. dahliae  by regulating its growth and development, furthermore,  VdEPG1  suppressed  VdNLP1 -mediated cell death by modulating pathogenesis-relatedgenes in  Nicotianabenthamiana . Ajasmonic acid pathway-relatedgene, and  GhOPR9  was identified when interacting with VdEPG1, to induce plant immune response to help cotton resist the infection of  V. dahliae . These results provide theoretical support for effective control of cotton Verticillium wilt and disease resistance breeding.

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32172081) and the Natural Science Foundation of Xinjiang Province (2022D01E101). Professor Heqin Zhu and Hongjie Feng from CCRI are co-corresponding authors, doctoral student Shichao Liu and postgraduate Ruibing Liu and Junyuan Lv are the co-first authors.

The article can be found:

https://doi.org/10.1111/mpp.13366

Fig 1. Schematic model ofthe interaction between  VdEPG1  and GhOPR9

By Yalin Zhang (zhangyalin@caas.cn)