ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The vectors used for VIGS were kindly provided by Prof. Bart Thomma (Laboratory of Phytopathology, Wageningen University and Research Center, The Netherlands). We are grateful to Prof. Guiliang Jian (Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China) for providing V. dahliae strain ‘V991’. We would like to thank De Zhu (National key laboratory of crop genetic improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan) for assistance with laser scanning confocal microscopy.