Abstract
Pear black spot (PBS) disease, which is caused by Alternaria alternata (Aa), is one of the most serious diseases affecting sand pear (Pyrus pyrifolia Nakai) cultivation worldwide. To investigate the defense mechanisms of sand pear in response to Aa, the transcriptome of a sand pear germplasm with differential resistance to Aa was analyzed using Illumina paired-end sequencing. Four libraries derived from PBS-resistant and PBS-susceptible sand pear leaves were characterized through inoculation or mock-inoculation. In total, 20.5 Gbp of sequence data and 101,632,565 reads were generated, representing 44717 genes. Approximately 66% of the genes or sequenced reads could be aligned to the pear reference genome. A large number (5213) of differentially expressed genes related to PBS resistance were obtained; 34 microsatellites were detected in these genes, and 28 genes were found to be closely related to PBS resistance. Using a transcriptome analysis in response to PBS inoculation and comparison analysis to the PHI database, 4 genes (Pbr039001, Pbr001627, Pbr025080 and Pbr023112) were considered to be promising candidates for sand pear resistance to PBS. This study provides insight into changes in the transcriptome of sand pear in response to PBS infection, and the findings have improved our understanding of the resistance mechanism of sand pear to PBS and will facilitate future gene discovery and functional genome studies of sand pear.
Highlights
Pear is one of the most important fruit crops in the world and has a long history of commercial cultivation in approximately 50 temperate countries [1,2,3,4]
5213 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) related to Pear black spot (PBS) resistance were obtained
The DEGs were grouped into distinct clusters based on expression patterns, and the results indicated that 3071 (88.8%) of the 3460 DEGs between H-CK and J-CK had significant matches in the nonredundant protein (Nr) database, 3015 (87.1%) had significant matches in the nucleotide sequence (Nt) database, 2359 (68.2%) had significant matches in the Swiss-Prot database, 3071 (88.8%) had significant matches in the TrEMBL database, 2612 (75.5%) had significant matches in the Gene Ontology (GO) database, 617 (17.8%) had significant matches in the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database, and 1267 (36.6%) had significant matches in the Cluster of Orthologous Groups of proteins (COG) database (Table 4)
Summary
Pear is one of the most important fruit crops in the world and has a long history of commercial cultivation in approximately 50 temperate countries [1,2,3,4]. Pear diseases have become a major constraint on the pear industry worldwide [5]. Pear black spot (PBS) disease, which is caused by Alternaria alternata (Aa), is one of the most serious diseases in sand pear. PBS disease causes both necrosis on pear leaves, twigs, and fruits and early leaf drop, and it reduces productivity and the quality of fruit. PBS disease decreases pear yields in areas with. PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0135046 August 20, 2015
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