Comparative transcriptome analysis of two Cercospora sojina strains reveals differences in virulence under nitrogen starvation stress

Xin Gu,Haihong Zhao,Zengjie Li,Wei Liu,Maoming Zhang,Liangliang Yao,Shuai Yang,Xiaohe Yang,Qingsheng Wang,Xuedong Gao,Junjie Ding,Zhimin Li

doi:10.1186/s12866-020-01853-0

Xin Gu, Haihong Zhao + Show 10 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12866-020-01853-0

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Abstract

BackgroundCercospora sojina is a fungal pathogen that causes frogeye leaf spot in soybean-producing regions, leading to severe yield losses worldwide. It exhibits variations in virulence due to race differentiation between strains. However, the candidate virulence-related genes are unknown because the infection process is slow, making it difficult to collect transcriptome samples.ResultsIn this study, virulence-related differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were obtained from the highly virulent Race 15 strain and mildly virulent Race1 strain under nitrogen starvation stress, which mimics the physiology of the pathogen during infection. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was then used to find co-expressed gene modules and assess the relationship between gene networks and phenotypes. Upon comparison of the transcriptomic differences in virulence between the strains, a total of 378 and 124 DEGs were upregulated, while 294 and 220 were downregulated in Race 1 and Race 15, respectively. Annotation of these DEGs revealed that many were associated with virulence differences, including scytalone dehydratase, 1,3,8-trihydroxynaphthalene reductase, and β-1,3-glucanase. In addition, two modules highly correlated with the highly virulent strain Race 15 and 36 virulence-related DEGs were found to contain mostly β-1,4-glucanase, β-1,4-xylanas, and cellobiose dehydrogenase.ConclusionsThese important nitrogen starvation-responsive DEGs are frequently involved in the synthesis of melanin, polyphosphate storage in the vacuole, lignocellulose degradation, and cellulose degradation during fungal development and differentiation. Transcriptome analysis indicated unique gene expression patterns, providing further insight into pathogenesis.

Highlights

Cercospora sojina is a fungal pathogen that causes frogeye leaf spot in soybean-producing regions, leading to severe yield losses worldwide
While a previous study focused on the analysis of gene expression during C. sojina infection [11], our study focused on the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) associated with pathogenicity during infection between two strains with different virulence
Virulence evaluation of the races and sequencing statistics The results showed that the disease index of Race 15 was 71.55 ± 0.59, which was much higher than that of Race 1 at 23.11 ± 2.12 (Fig. 1)

Summary

Introduction

Cercospora sojina is a fungal pathogen that causes frogeye leaf spot in soybean-producing regions, leading to severe yield losses worldwide. Global soybean production is severely affected by Cercospora sojina Hara [1], which can infect all aerial organs of soybean plants [2]. It can result in more than 35% production loss under suitable climatic conditions [3], it has strong infectivity and physiological race differentiation [4]. A new strain, namely, Race 15 has emerged in Heilongjiang province. It exhibits an increasing frequency of isolation from the field and shows high virulence. It is of great significance to clarify the molecular mechanisms of the infection process between virulent C. sojina strains

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