A novel glycoside hydrolase 74 xyloglucanase CvGH74A is a virulence factor in Coniella vitis

Grape white rot is a destructive fungal disease occurring worldwide. Recently, Coniella vitis was identified as the predominant pathogen causing this disease in China. As the periderms of grape shoots are severely degraded by C. vitis, it was speculated that cell wall-degrading enzymes (CWDEs) might play a key role in the pathogenesis of this disease. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the hydrolytic activity of the CWDEs of C. vitis. The results showed that xylanase (Xy) and xyloglucanase (XEG) had high levels of hydrolytic activity both in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, a high-virulence fungal strain exhibited higher levels of Xy and XEG activities compared with a low-virulence strain. The genome of the fungus was found to harbor two XEG-coding genes CvGH74A and CvGH74B, which belonged to the glycoside hydrolase (GH)74 family. The expression level of CvGH74A was found to be high during pathogen infection. CvGH74A gene deletion mutants were generated using the split-marker method. The deletion of CvGH74A decreased both the hydrolytic activities of XEG and Xy and also the ability of the fungus to infect the grape leaves. No differences in the hyphal growth, morphology of colonies, or conidiation were found between the ΔCvGH74A mutant strains and the wild-type strain. Together, these results suggested that CvGH74A acted as an important virulence factor, and its enzymatic activity might regulate the virulence of the pathogen. This study was novel in reporting that GH74 XEG acted as a virulence factor in C. vitis.