Amanda Rocha da Costa Corval ¹ Lucas Amoroso Lopes de Carvalho ² Emily Mesquita ³ Jéssica Fiorotti ⁴ Thaís Almeida Correa ¹ Victória Silvestre Bório ¹ Adriani da Silva Carneiro ¹ Daniel Guariz Pinheiro ² Irene Coelho ⁵ Huarrisson Azevedo Santos ⁶ Everton Kort Kamp Fernandes ⁷ Isabele da Costa Angelo ⁶ Vânia Rita Elias Pinheiro Bittencourt ⁸ Patricia Silva Golo ^9*

• ¹ Postgraduate Program in Veterinary Sciences, Veterinary Institute, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• ² Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Department of Agricultural, Livestock and Environmental Biotechnology, School of Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences, São Paulo State University, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
• ³ Veterinary Institute, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• ⁴ Department of Biochemistry and Immunology, Ribeirão Preto School of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
• ⁵ Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Immunology, Veterinary Institute, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• ⁶ Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Veterinary Institute, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• ⁷ Institute of Tropical Pathology and Public Health, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil
• ⁸ Department of Animal Parasitology, Veterinary Institute, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• ⁹ Department of Animal Parasitology, Veterinary Institute, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Brazil

Metarhizium is widely known for its role as an arthropod biocontrol agent and plant bioinoculant. By using mass-production industrial methods, it is possible to produce large amounts of fungal singlecelled propagules (including blastospores) to be applied in the field. However, in the environment, the solar ultraviolet components (particularly UV-B) can harm the fungus, negatively impacting its pathogenicity towards the arthropod pest. The present study is the first to use comparative genomewide transcriptome analyses to unveil changes in gene expression between Metarhizium pingshaense blastospores exposed or not to UV-B. Relative blastospores culturability was calculated 72 h after UV-B exposure and exhibited 100% culturability. In total, 6.57% (n = 728) out of 11,076 predicted genes in M. pingshaense were differentially expressed after UV-B exposure:320 genes (44%; 320/728) were upregulated and 408 (56%; 408/720) were downregulated in the UV-B exposed blastospores. Results unveiled differentially expressed gene sets related to fungal virulence, production of secondary metabolites, and DNA repair associated with UV damage; genes related to virulence factors were downregulated, and genes associated with nucleotide excision repair were upregulated. These findings illustrate critical aspects of Metarhizium blastospores strategies to overcome UV-B damage and survive solar radiation exposures in insulated fields.