Oxidative stress

Fungus

Reactive oxygen species

Effector

Biology

Microbiology

Respiratory burst

Apoptosis

Pathogen

Immunology

Programmed cell death

Oxidative phosphorylation

Botany

Cell biology

Genetics

Biochemistry

Plant Communications

Fungal phytopathogens pose a serious threat to global crop production. Only a handful of strategies are available to combat these fungal infections, and the increasing incidence of fungicide resistance is making the situation worse. Hence, the molecular understanding of plant-fungus interactions remains a primary focus of plant pathology. One of the hallmarks of host-pathogen interactions is the overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) as a plant defense mechanism, collectively termed the oxidative burst. In general, high accumulation of ROS restricts the growth of pathogenic organisms by causing localized cell death around the site of infection. To survive the oxidative burst and achieve successful host colonization, fungal phytopathogens employ intricate mechanisms for ROS perception, ROS neutralization, and protection from ROS-mediated damage. Together, these countermeasures maintain the physiological redox homeostasis that is essential for cell viability. In addition to intracellular antioxidant systems, phytopathogenic fungi also deploy interesting effector-mediated mechanisms for extracellular ROS modulation. This aspect of plant-pathogen interactions is significantly under-studied and provides enormous scope for future research. These adaptive responses, broadly categorized into "escape" and "exploitation" mechanisms, are poorly understood. In this review, we discuss the oxidative stress response of filamentous fungi, their perception signaling, and recent insights that provide a comprehensive understanding of the distinct survival mechanisms of fungal pathogens in response to the host-generated oxidative burst.

Surviving the odds: From perception to survival of fungal phytopathogens under host-generated oxidative burst