Abstract
The evolution of pathogens in the changing climate raises new challenges for wheat production. Yellow rust is one of the major wheat diseases worldwide, leading to an increased use of fungicides to prevent significant yield losses. The enhancement of the resistance potential of wheat cultivars is a necessary and environmentally friendly solution for sustainable wheat production. In this study, we aimed to identify the differentially expressed genes induced upon yellow rust infection in the field. Reference and de novo based transcriptome analysis was performed among the resistant and susceptible lines of a bi-parental population to study the global transcriptome changes in contrasting wheat genotypes. Based on the analysis, the de novo transcriptome analysis approach was found to be more supportive for field studies. Expression profiles, gene ontology, KEGG pathway analysis and enrichment studies indicated the relation between differentially expressed genes of wheat and yellow rust infection. The h0igh expression of genes related to non-race specific resistance along with pathogen-specific resistance might be a reason for the better resistance ability of a resistant wheat genotype in the field. The targeted metagenomic analysis of wheat samples revealed that Puccinia striiformis tritici was the most dominant pathogen along with other pathogens on the collected leaf material and validating the disease scoring carried out in the field and transcriptomics analyses.
Highlights
Yellow rust (YR) in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is caused by the biotrophic pathogenPuccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst) and is distinguished by the yellow pustules that occur on leaves.It is a major disease of wheat worldwide and if left uncontrolled, may cause 100% yield losses in highly susceptible wheat cultivars [1]
Transcriptome analysis was conducted between a resistant and susceptible wheat genotype with a different level of resistance in the field, and several differentially expressed genes were identified through reference and de novo transcriptome assembly
In our comparative transcriptome study, the de novo approach was found to be more explorative than the reference assembly process due to high dependency on the reference genome, and the gene expression of similar genes from cross eukaryotic species like fungus has a high chance of influencing the gene expression quantification process due to short reads
Summary
Yellow (stripe) rust (YR) in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is caused by the biotrophic pathogenPuccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst) and is distinguished by the yellow pustules that occur on leaves.It is a major disease of wheat worldwide and if left uncontrolled, may cause 100% yield losses in highly susceptible wheat cultivars [1]. Yellow (stripe) rust (YR) in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is caused by the biotrophic pathogen. Tritici (Pst) and is distinguished by the yellow pustules that occur on leaves. It is a major disease of wheat worldwide and if left uncontrolled, may cause 100% yield losses in highly susceptible wheat cultivars [1]. Genetic resistance to yellow rust in wheat at the seedling stage is mainly through the major resistance (R) genes while at the adult-plant stage, the genetic resistance can be either from R genes or adult-plant resistance genes (APR) or both. R genes recognize and neutralize specific pathogen effectors in a gene-for-gene interaction resulting in effector-triggered immunity (ETI) in plants leading to complete disease resistance [4].
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