Abstract
Fusarium head blight caused by Fusarium graminearum is a serious fungal disease on wheat and maize worldwide, resulting in a significant economic loss. DUG3-mediated glutathione utilization has been revealed to play important roles in fungal differentiation, metabolism, stress adaptation, and plant infection. However, functional roles of the DUG3 homolog in F. graminearum remain uncharacterized. In the present study, FgDUG3 was knocked-out via homologous recombination to investigate functions of this gene. The deletion mutant (ΔFgDUG3) was normal in mycelial growth, but showed impairments in conidiation, conidial germination, and plant infection, compared to the wild-type strain. The defects of ΔFgDUG3 were recovered in the complemented strain (ΔFgDUG3-C). Transcriptomic analysis revealed that deletion of FgDUG3 caused significantly differential expression of genes, mainly related to metabolism, catabolism, cellular structure organization, and signal transduction. Taken together, these results suggest that FgDUG3 plays important roles in the differentiation and pathogenicity of F. graminearum.