Molecular Dialogues between Early Divergent Fungi and Bacteria in an Antagonism versus a Mutualism
Olga A. Lastovetsky, Lev Krasnovsky, Xiaotian Qin, María L. Gaspar, Andrii P. Gryganskyi, Marcel Huntemann, Alicia Clum, Manoj Pillay, Krishna Palaniappan, Neha Varghese, Natalia Mikhailova, Dimitrios Stamatis, T. B. K. Reddy, Chris Daum, Nicole Shapiro, Natalia Ivanova, Nikos C. Kyrpides, Tanja Woyke, Teresa E. Pawlowska
Abstract
Animals and plants interact with microbes by engaging specific surveillance systems, regulatory networks, and response modules that allow for accommodation of mutualists and defense against antagonists. Antimicrobial defense responses are mediated in both animals and plants by innate immunity systems that owe their functional similarities to convergent evolution. Like animals and plants, fungi interact with bacteria. However, the principles governing these relations are only now being discovered. In a study system of host and nonhost fungi interacting with a bacterium isolated from the host, we found that bacteria used a common gene repertoire to engage both partners. In contrast, fungal responses to bacteria differed dramatically between the host and nonhost. These findings suggest that as in animals and plants, the genetic makeup of the fungus determines whether bacterial partners are perceived as mutualists or antagonists and what specific regulatory networks and response modules are initiated during each encounter.