Jianhua Zhao

TL;DR: This work shows that in response to infection with Verticillium dahliae, cotton plants increase production of microRNA 166 and miR159 and export both to the fungal hyphae for specific silencing, identifying a novel defence strategy of host plants by exporting specific miRNAs to induce cross-kingdom gene silencing in pathogenic fungi and confer disease resistance.

TL;DR: It is suggested that 2b may suppress PTGS and RdDM in vivo by binding and sequestering siRNA and the long dsRNA precursor in a process that is facilitated by its interactions with AGOs in the nucleolus.

TL;DR: The presence of V. dahliae in soil naturally leads to the colonization of vascular tissues, from the parasitic to saprophytic phase, when mycelia and melanized dormancy microsclerotia are produced in the infected cotton, resulting in vessel blockage and cotton wilt disease.

TL;DR: A secretory polysaccharide deacetylase (PDA1) from the soil-borne fungus Verticillium dahliae is identified that facilitates virulence through direct de acetylation of chitin oligomers whose N-acetyl group contributes to host lysine motif (LysM)-containing receptor perception for ligand-triggered immunity.

TL;DR: This review summarizes and discusses recent important findings regarding trans-kingdom sRNAs and RNA silencing in plant-fungal pathogen interactions compared with the well-known RNAi mechanisms in plants and fungi and proposes an ideal research system exploiting plant vasculature-Verticillium interaction to further study trans-Kingdom RNAsilencing.