Considering that extracellular trehalases are known virulence factors for entomopathogenic fungus, since trehalose is the main sugar in the haemolymph of insects, we refrained from using an alternative insect infection bioassay (e.g., with Galleria mellonella larvae or silkworm) to determine the virulence of the ath1Δ mutant strain. Here, TREH is linked to infection.