Molecular mechanism of Verticillium dahliae-induced leaf senescence

Verticillium dahliae is a soil-borne hemibiotrophic fungus that affects a wide range of hosts,including important crops (such as cotton,tomato,potatoes,cauliflower,and sunflower) and the model plant Arabidopsis (Fradin and Thomma,2006).V.dahliae infections can result in significant crop losses as no effective fungicides are available at the moment.Upon infection,V.dahliae causes verticillium wilt,leaf chlorosis and cell death,and precocious senescence in host plants(Fradin and Thomma,2006).Leaf senescence is known to be regulated by developmental age,plant hormones (e.g.,ethylene),and a variety of environmental factors (Woo et al.,2019),but how V.dahliae induces leaf senescence in its host plants is not clear.