Abstract
Phytophthora infestans (P. infestans) recently caused epidemics of tomato late blight. Our study aimed to identify the function of the SlMYBS2 gene in response to tomato late blight. To further investigate the function of SlMYBS2 in tomato resistance to P. infestans, we studied the effects of SlMYBS2 gene knock out. The SlMYBS2 gene was knocked out by CRISPR-Cas9, and the resulting plants (SlMYBS2 gene knockout, slmybs2-c) showed reduced resistance to P. infestans, accompanied by increases in the number of necrotic cells, lesion sizes, and disease index. Furthermore, after P. infestans infection, the expression levels of pathogenesis-related (PR) genes in slmybs2-c plants were significantly lower than those in wild-type (AC) plants, while the number of necrotic cells and the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) were higher than those in wild-type plants. Taken together, these results indicate that SlMYBS2 acts as a positive regulator of tomato resistance to P. infestans infection by regulating the ROS level and the expression level of PR genes.
Highlights
During their growth, plants are often subjected to biotic and abiotic stresses [1,2], such as disease, high and low temperatures, drought, salinity, and other adverse events
RT-qPCR analysis showed that late blight significantly induced the SlMYBS2 gene (Figure S1), the function of which3 ohfa1s4 not yet been reported; we focused on SlMYBS2 in this study
We found that SlMYBS2-GFP signals were present in the nucleus only (Figure 2B,C), which was in agreement with its role as a transcription factor
Summary
Plants are often subjected to biotic and abiotic stresses [1,2], such as disease, high and low temperatures, drought, salinity, and other adverse events. Further research revealed an increasing number of MYB transcription factors involved in biotic and abiotic stress. MYB transcription factors are widely involved in low-temperature stress responses in plants, such as AtMYB15 in Arabidopsis [17], GmMYB76 and GmMYB1 in soybeans [18], and MdMYB88 and MdMYB124 in apples [19]. An increasing number of MYB genes related to biotic stress have been found in tomato in recent years. Twenty-four R2R3-MYB transcription factors in the tomato genome were identified based on their association with Arabidopsis R2R3-MYBs. After Phytophthora infection, the expression of MYB49 was increased significantly, and high resistance to P. infestans was observed in tomato plants with OsMYB4 overexpression. The present study aimed to determine the functional impact of the SlMYBS2 gene during P. infestans-induced tomato late blight and is the first to clarify the role of SlMYBS2 in this disease. Exploring the induced expression changes and elucidating the function of SlMYBS2 in tomato disease resistance are very important, and this research provides candidate genes for tomato disease-resistance breeding, making it possible to obtain disease-resistant tomato varieties
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
