Comparative\u2002transcriptome\u2002analysis in Triticum aestivum infecting wheat dwarf virus reveals the effects of viral infection on phytohormone and photosynthesis metabolism pathways

Yu Liu,Xifeng Wang,Carl Spetz,Li Li,Yan Liu

doi:10.1186/s42483-019-0042-6

Abstract

Wheat dwarf virus (WDV), a mastrevirus transmitted by the leafhopper Psammotettix alienus, causes a severe disease in cereal crops. Typical symptoms of wheat plants infected by WDV are yellowing and severe dwarfing. In this present study, RNA-Seq was used to perform gene expression analysis in wheat plants in response to WDV infection. Comparative transcriptome analysis indicated that a total of 1042 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in the comparison between mock and WDV-inoculated wheat plants. Genomes ontology (GO) annotation revealed a number of DEGs associated with different biological processes, such as phytohormone metabolism, photosynthesis, DNA metabolic process, response to biotic stimulus and defense response. Among these, DEGs involved in phytohormone and photosynthesis metabolism and response pathways were further enriched and analyzed, which indicated that hormone biosynthesis, signaling and chloroplast photosynthesis-related genes might play an important role in symptom development after WDV infection. These results illustrate the dynamic nature of the wheat-WDV interaction at the transcriptome level and confirm that symptom development is a complex process, providing a solid foundation to elucidate the pathogenesis of WDV.

Highlights

Wheat dwarf disease (WDD) causes serious yield losses in cereal crops including wheat and barley worldwide, in Europe and Asia (Vacke 1961; Lindsten and Lindste 1999; Najar et al 2000; Xie et al 2007)
Our results suggested that reduced levels of Auxin-induced protein 15A (SAUR) in infected wheat plants may disturb plant growth processes, contributing to the stunting symptom development
The decreased expression of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) encoding BSK3 and Det2, and increased BRI1 kinase inhibitor 1 (BKI1) in our study suggested that Wheat dwarf virus (WDV) infection may impair BRs biosynthesis and signaling pathway in wheat plant, and subsequently block its normal response to BRs

Summary

Introduction

Wheat dwarf disease (WDD) causes serious yield losses in cereal crops including wheat and barley worldwide, in Europe and Asia (Vacke 1961; Lindsten and Lindste 1999; Najar et al 2000; Xie et al 2007). Symptoms of WDD typically include extremely dwarfed plant height, yellowing or streaking on leaves, and even failure (2020) 2:3. Phytohormones are involved in all plant growth and developmental processes. They play an important role in plant defense response to invading microbial pathogens (Berens et al 2017). Rice plants infected with rice dwarf virus (RDV) exhibit a dwarf phenotype, which correlates to reduced levels of GA1. These defects were rescued by exogenous application of GA3 (Zhu et al 2005). The BR pathway is associated with susceptibility whereas the JA pathway is involved in resistance to rice black-streaked dwarf virus (RBSDV) (He et al 2017)

Methods

Results

Conclusion