Global Gene Responses of Resistant and Susceptible Sugarcane Cultivars to Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae Identified Using Comparative Transcriptome Analysis

• Published in: Microorganisms (Basel) Vol. 8; no. 1; p. 10
• Main Authors: Chu, Na, Zhou, Jing-Ru, Fu, Hua-Ying, Huang, Mei-Ting, Zhang, Hui-Li, Gao, San-Ji
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 19.12.2019; MDPI
• Subjects: Biosynthesis; Coumarin; Cultivars; Defense mechanisms; Disease; Gene expression; Gene sequencing; Genes; Infections; Inoculation; Jasmonic acid; Kinases; MAP kinase; Metabolism; Molecular modelling; Pathogens; Photosynthesis; Plant bacterial diseases; Protein kinase; Proteins; Ribonucleic acid; RNA; Salicylic acid; Signal transduction; Stripe disease; Sugarcane; Transcriptomes; Argentina; China; Taiwan; Saccharum spp; red stripe disease; disease resistance; transcriptome; Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae
• ISSN: 2076-2607; 2076-2607
• DOI: 10.3390/microorganisms8010010

Red stripe disease in sugarcane caused by subsp. ( ) is related to serious global losses in yield. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms associated with responses of sugarcane plants to infection by this pathogen remain largely unknown. Here, we used Illumina RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) to perform large-scale transcriptome sequencing of two sugarcane cultivars to contrast gene expression patterns of plants between and mock inoculations, and identify key genes and pathways involved in sugarcane defense responses to infection. At 0-72 hours post-inoculation (hpi) of the red stripe disease-resistant cultivar ROC22, a total of 18,689 genes were differentially expressed between -inoculated and mock-inoculated samples. Of these, 8498 and 10,196 genes were up- and downregulated, respectively. In MT11-610, which is susceptible to red stripe disease, 15,782 genes were differentially expressed between -inoculated and mock-inoculated samples and 8807 and 6984 genes were up- and downregulated, respectively. The genes that were differentially expressed following inoculation were mainly involved in photosynthesis and carbon metabolism, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, plant hormone signal transduction, and plant-pathogen interaction pathways. Further, qRT-PCR and RNA-seq used for additional validation of 12 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) showed that eight genes in particular were highly expressed in ROC22. These eight genes participated in the biosynthesis of lignin and coumarin, as well as signal transduction by salicylic acid, jasmonic acid, ethylene, and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), suggesting that they play essential roles in sugarcane resistance to . Collectively, our results characterized the sugarcane transcriptome during early infection with , thereby providing insights into the molecular mechanisms responsible for bacterial tolerance.