Regulates Fungal Development and Virulence in .

causes rice blast disease, which threatens global rice production. The interaction between and rice is regarded as a classic model for studying the relationship between the pathogen and the host. In this study, we found a gene, , regulating fungal development and virulence in . The ∆ mutants showed more sensitivity to cell wall integrity stressors and their cell wall is more easily degraded by enzymes. Moreover, a decreased content of chitin but higher contents of arabinose, sorbitol, lactose, rhamnose, and xylitol were found in the ∆ mutant. Combined with transcriptomic results, many genes in MAPK and sugar metabolism pathways are significantly regulated in the ∆ mutant. A hexokinase gene, was downregulated in ∆ according to transcriptome results. We overexpressed in a ∆ mutant. The results showed that fungal growth and chitin contents in -overexpressing strains were restored significantly compared to the ∆ mutant. Furthermore, MoHG1 could interact with MGG_00623 directly through the yeast two-hybrid and BiFC. Overall, these results suggest that MoHG1 coordinating with hexokinase regulates fungal development and virulence by affecting chitin contents and cell wall integrity in which provides a reference for studying the functions of -like genes.