Abstract
The late blight pathogen Phytophthora infestans can attack both potato foliage and tubers. When inoculated with P. infestans, foliage of nontransformed ‘Russet Burbank’ (WT) develops late blight disease while that of transgenic ‘Russet Burbank’ line SP2211 (+RB) does not. We compared the foliar transcriptome responses of these two lines to P. infestans inoculation using an RNA-seq approach. A total of 515 million paired end RNA-seq reads were generated, representing the transcription of 29,970 genes. We also compared the differences and similarities of defense mechanisms against P. infestans in potato foliage and tubers. Differentially expressed genes, gene groups and ontology bins were identified to show similarities and differences in foliage and tuber defense mechanisms. Our results suggest that R gene dosage and shared biochemical pathways (such as ethylene and stress bins) contribute to RB-mediated incompatible potato-P. infestans interactions in both the foliage and tubers. Certain ontology bins such as cell wall and lipid metabolisms are potentially organ-specific.
Highlights
Phytophthora infestans is a notorious plant destroyer with the capacity to attack both potato foliage and tuber
In previous field-based evaluations, the +RB line examined in this study, SP2211, was ranked as the third most foliage late blight resistant of 57 transgenic lines tested and was rated as “Resistant” to foliage late blight (Fig 1) [7]
Similar to previous research documenting that the RB transgene is transcriptionally up-regulated in the foliage following pathogen inoculation [25], in this study, the RB transgene transcript levels increased to 234% at 6 hpi and decreased to 165% at 24 hpi in foliage
Summary
Phytophthora infestans is a notorious plant destroyer with the capacity to attack both potato foliage and tuber. The direct costs of control efforts and lost production are estimated at over 5 billion dollars per year globally [1]. Foliage resistance against P. infestans does not guarantee tuber resistance [2], some genetic or phenotypic correlations between tuber and foliage resistance have been reported [3, 4]. We reported that higher RB gene copy numbers correspond to higher transcript levels and enhanced late blight resistance in the foliage [7]. Our research group discovered two transgenic (+RB) potato lines (SP2211 and SP2213) with extraordinary RB transcript levels that are resistant to the late
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