Molecular cloning and characterization of the AVR-Pia locus from a Japanese field isolate of Magnaporthe oryzae

In order to clone and analyse the avirulence gene AVR-Pia from Japanese field isolates of Magnaporthe oryzae, a mutant of the M. oryzae strain Ina168 was isolated. This mutant, which was named Ina168m95-1, gained virulence towards the rice cultivar Aichi-asahi, which contains the resistance gene Pia. A DNA fragment (named PM01) that was deleted in the mutant and that co-segregated with avirulence towards Aichi-asahi was isolated. Three cosmid clones that included the regions that flanked PM01 were isolated from a genomic DNA library. One of these clones (46F3) complemented the mutant phenotype, which indicated clearly that this clone contained the avirulence gene AVR-Pia. Clone 46F3 contained insertions of transposable elements. The 46F3 insert was divided into fragments I-VI, and these were cloned individually into a hygromycin-resistant vector for the transformation of the mutant Ina168m95-1. An inoculation assay of the transformants revealed that fragment V (3.5 kb) contained AVR-Pia. By deletion analysis of fragment V, AVR-Pia was localized to an 1199-bp DNA fragment, which included a 255-bp open reading frame with weak homology to a bacterial cytochrome-c-like protein. Restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of this region revealed that this DNA sequence co-segregated with the AVR-Pia locus in a genetic map that was constructed using Chinese isolates.