Vegetative Growth and Pathogenicity Tests of Mutants

The vegetative growth and pathogenicity of gene deletion mutants and over-expression transformants were analyzed as previous described (Feng et al., 2017a). Briefly, fungal colony diameters were measured at 48h post-cultivation. The assay was independently performed three times, and each experiment had three replicates. Pathogenicity was tested using “Fuji” apple twigs, as described by Feng et al. (2017a). Lesion length was measured at 5days post-inoculation (dpi). The pathogenicity test was repeated three times, and each experiment had three replicates. Next, the significant difference in means was analyzed by a t-test (for two independent sample groups) and ANOVA (for three or more independent sample groups; at p≤0.05) in GraphPad Prism 6.0 software.