Gene Expression Profiling Shows That NbFDN1 Is Involved in Modulating the Hypersensitive Response-Like Cell Death Induced by the Oat dwarf virus RepA Protein

Abstract

In this study, we used high-throughput deep nucleotide sequencing to characterize the global transcriptional response of Nicotiana benthamiana plants to transient expression of the RepA protein from Oat dwarf virus (ODV). We identified 7,878 significantly differentially expressed genes (DEG) that mapped to 125 pathways, suggesting that comprehensive networks are involved in regulation of RepA-induced cell death. Of the 202 DEG associated with photosynthesis, expression of 195 was found to be downregulated, indicating a significant inhibition of photosynthesis in response to RepA expression, which is associated with chloroplast disruption and physiological changes. We focused our analysis on NbFDN1, a member of the ferredoxin protein family that participates in the chloroplast electron transport chain performing oxygenic photosynthesis, which was identified to directly interact with NbTsip1. We separately knocked down the expression of NbFDN1 and NbTsip1 using virus-induced gene silencing, and found that NbFDN1 silencing speeded up the development of RepA-induced cell death, unlike NbTsip1 silencing, which showed an opposite effect on RepA-induced response. Further study showed increased H2O2 accumulation and a negative correlation between the transcripts of NbFDN1 and NbTsip1 in NbFDN1-silenced plants. Hence, we speculate that NbFDN1 has an effect on RepA-induced hypersensitive response-like response by modulating NbTsip1 transcription as well as H2O2 production.