The 5-oxoprolinase is required for conidiation, sexual reproduction, virulence and deoxynivalenol production of Fusarium graminearum.

In eukaryotic organisms, the 5-oxoprolinase is one of the six key enzymes in the γ-glutamyl cycle that is involved in the biosynthetic pathway of glutathione (GSH, an antioxidative tripeptide counteracting the oxidative stress). To date, little is known about the biological functions of the 5-oxoprolinase in filamentous phytopathogenic fungi. In this study, we investigated the 5-oxoprolinase in Fusarium graminearum for the first time. In F. graminearum, two paralogous genes (FgOXP1 and FgOXP2) were identified to encode the 5-oxoprolinase while only one homologous gene encoding the 5-oxoprolinase could be found in other filamentous phytopathogenic fungi or Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Deletion of FgOXP1 or FgOXP2 in F. graminearum led to significant defects in its virulence on wheat. This is likely caused by an observed decreased deoxynivalenol (DON, a mycotoxin) production in the gene deletion mutant strains as DON is one of the best characterized virulence factors of F. graminearum. The FgOXP2 deletion mutant strains were also defective in conidiation and sexual reproduction while the FgOXP1 deletion mutant strains were normal for those phenotypes. Double deletion of FgOXP1 and FgOXP2 led to more severe defects in conidiation, DON production and virulence on plants, suggesting that both FgOXP1 and FgOXP2 play a role in fungal development and plant colonization. Although transformation of MoOXP1into ΔFgoxp1 was able to complement ΔFgoxp1, transformation of MoOXP1 into ΔFgoxp2 failed to restore its defects in sexual development, DON production and pathogenicity. Taken together, these results suggest that FgOXP1 and FgOXP2 are likely to have been functionally diversified and play significant roles in fungal development and full virulence in F. graminearum.