Miriam Oses-Ruiz

Public University of Navarre | UPNA · IMAB

Rice blast, the most destructive disease of cultivated rice world‐wide, is caused by the filamentous fungus Magnaporthe oryzae. To cause disease in plants, M. oryzae secretes a diverse range of effector proteins to suppress plant defense responses, modulate cellular processes, and support pathogen growth. Some effectors can be secreted by appressor...

Many of the world's most devastating crop diseases are caused by fungal pathogens which elaborate specialized infection structures to invade plant tissue. Here we present a quantitative mass spectrometry-based phosphoproteomic analysis of infection-related development by the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, which threatens global food security...

The rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae causes a devastating disease that threatens global rice (Oryza sativa) production. Despite intense study, the biology of plant tissue invasion during blast disease remains poorly understood. Here we report a high resolution, transcriptional profiling study of the entire plant-associated development of the bl...

The rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae causes a devastating disease which threatens global rice production. In spite of intense study, the biology of plant tissue invasion during blast disease remains poorly understood. Here we report a high resolution, transcriptional profiling study of the entire plant-associated development of the blast fungus...

Rice blast is a devastating disease caused by the fungal pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae that threatens rice production around the world. The fungus produces a specialized infection cell, called the appressorium, that enables penetration through the plant cell wall in response to surface signals from the rice leaf. The underlying biology of plant infec...

To cause disease, many fungal pathogens develop specialised structures to rupture the tough outer layers of their plant or animal hosts. These infection cells, called appressoria, have been extensively studied in many fungal species [1]. However, once inside host tissue, pathogens must also invade new cells and traverse host cell junctions. How the...

Magnaporthe oryzae is the causal agent of rice blast disease, the most widespread and serious disease of cultivated rice. Live cell imaging and quantitative 4D image analysis have provided new insight into the mechanisms by which the fungus infects host cells and spreads rapidly in plant tissue. In this video review article, we apply live cell imag...

Chitosan is a partially deacetylated linear polysaccharide composed of β‐1,4‐linked units of d‐glucosamine and N‐acetyl glucosamine. As well as a structural component of fungal cell walls, chitosan is a potent antifungal agent. However, the mode of action of chitosan is poorly understood. Here, we report that chitosan is effective for control of ri...

Many pathogenic fungi depend on the development of specialized infection structures called appressoria to invade their hosts and cause disease. Impairing the function of fungal infection structures therefore provides a potential means by which diseases could be prevented. In spite of this extraordinary potential, however, relatively few anti-penetr...

Chitosan is a partially deacetylated linear polysaccharide composed of β-1,4-linked units of D-glucosamine and N-acetyl glucosamine. As well as acting as a structural component of fungal cell walls, chitosan can be applied as a potent antifungal agent. However, the mode-of-action of chitosan in fungal pathogens is poorly understood. Here, we report...

Rice blast is a pervasive and devastating disease that threatens rice production across the world. In spite of its importance to global food security, however, the underlying biology of plant infection by the blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae remains poorly understood. In particular, it is unclear how the fungus elaborates a specialised infection cel...

The corn smut fungus uses two different mechanisms to control its cell cycle when it is infecting plants.

The blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae gains entry to its host plant by means of a specialized pressure-generating infection cell called an appressorium, which physically ruptures the leaf cuticle1,2. Turgor is applied as an enormous invasive force by septin-mediated reorganization of the cytoskeleton and actin-dependent protrusion of a rigid penetrat...

The pathogenic life cycle of the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae involves a series of morphogenetic changes, essential for its ability to cause disease. The smo mutation was identified > 25 years ago, and affects the shape and development of diverse cell types in M. oryzae, including conidia, appressoria, and asci. All attempts to clone the SM...

Keeping the channels open When the rice blast fungus enters a rice cell, the plasma membrane stays intact, so the rice cell remains viable. The fungus then moves to adjacent cells via plasmodesmata, the plant's intercellular channels. Sakulkoo et al. used a chemical genetic approach to selectively inhibit a single MAP (mitogen-activated protein) ki...

The rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae forms a specialized infection structure called appressorium which uses a turgor-driven mechanical process to breach the leaf cuticle and gain entry into plant tissue. Appressorium development and plant infection are regulated by cell cycle progression and critically depend upon two, temporally separated S-ph...

Cell cycle regulation is pivotal for proper cell division and cellular differentiation in eukaryotic cells. The central regulators that govern eukaryotic cell cycle progression are cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) and their partners. Here, we report that Magnaporthe oryzae CKS1 encodes a cyclin-dependent kinase subunit, which plays a significant rol...

Significance Rice blast is a devastating fungal disease of cultivated rice, and its control is vital to ensure global food security. In an effort to understand how the rice blast fungus causes disease, we have investigated how the cell cycle controls the early stages of plant infection. The rice blast fungus develops a special cell, called an appre...

The control of cytokinesis and septation by pathogenic fungi is critical to the developmental changes associated with host invasion and fungal pathogenesis. Pathogenic processes, such as growth within host tissue, often require changes between yeast-like, determinate, isotropic growth and hyphal, polarised, anisotropic growth, which must be appropr...

The rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae, is responsible for the most serious disease of rice and is a continuing threat to ensuring global food security. The fungus has also, however, emerged as a model experimental organism for understanding plant infection processes by pathogenic fungi. This is largely due to its amenability to both classical a...

Fungi have the capacity to cause devastating diseases of both plants and animals, causing significant harvest losses that threaten food security and human mycoses with high mortality rates. As a consequence, there is a critical need to promote development of new antifungal drugs, which requires a comprehensive molecular knowledge of fungal pathogen...

a b s t r a c t Nep1-like proteins (NLPs) induce necrosis and ethylene production in dicotyledonous plants. Botrytis cinerea contains two genes encoding NLPs, named Bcnep1 and Bcnep2. The activity of both proteins as well as the expression and function of the genes was studied. The genes are differentially expressed during pathogenesis. Mutants in...