LAUSR

The fungus Magnaporthe oryzae uses a specialized pressure-generating infection cell called an appressorium to break into rice leaves and initiate disease. Appressorium functionality is dependent on the formation of a cortical septin ring during its morphogenesis, but precisely how this structure assembles is unclear. Here we show that F-actin rings are recruited to the circumference of incipient septin disc-like structures in a pressure-dependent manner, and that this is necessary for their contraction and remodeling into rings. We demonstrate that the structural integrity of these incipient septin discs requires both an intact F-actin and microtubule cytoskeleton and provide fundamental new insight into their functional organization within the appressorium. Lastly, using proximity-dependent, labelling we identify the actin modulator coronin as a septin proximal protein and show that F-actin-mediated septin disc-to-ring remodeling is perturbed in the genetic absence of coronin. Taken together, our findings provide new insight into the dynamic remodeling of infection-specific higher-order septin structures in a globally significant fungal plant pathogen.