Abstract
Fusarium wilt (FW) is a very serious soil-borne disease worldwide, which usually results in huge yield losses in cucumber production. However, the inheritance and molecular mechanism of the response to FW are still unknown in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.). In this study, two inbred cucumber lines Superina (P1) and Rijiecheng (P2) were used as the sensitive and resistant lines, respectively. A mixed major gene plus polygene inheritance model was used to analyze the resistance to FW in different generations of cucumber, namely, P1, P2, F1 (P1×P2), B1, and B2, obtained by backcrossing F1 plants with Superina (B1) or Rijiecheng (B2), and F2, obtained by self-crossing the F1 plants. After screening 18 genetic models, we chose the E-1 model, which included two pairs of additive-dominance-epistatic major genes and additive-dominance polygenes, as the optimal model for resistance to FW on the basis of fitness tests. The major effect quantitative trait locus (QTL) fw2.1 was detected in a 1.91-Mb-long region of chromosome 2 by bulked-segregant analysis. We used five insertion/deletion markers to fine-map the fw2.1 to a 0.60 Mb interval from 1,248,093 to 1,817,308 bp on chromosome 2 that contained 80 candidate genes. We also used the transcriptome data of Rijiecheng inoculated with Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cucumerinum (Foc) to screen the candidate genes. Twelve differentially expressed genes were detected in fw2.1, and five of them were significantly induced by FW. The expression levels of the five genes were higher in FW-resistant Rijiecheng inoculated with Foc than in the control inoculated with water. Our results will contribute to a better understanding of the genetic basis of FW resistance in cucumber, which may help in breeding FW-resistant cucumber lines in the future.
Highlights
Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) is an economically important vegetable crop that ranks fourth in vegetable production worldwide
Fusarium wilt (FW) caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cucumerinum Owen (Owen, 1955), which is a forma specialis that infects the vascular bundles of cucumber, leads to necrotic lesions on the stem base, foliar wilting and eventually whole plant wilt, and even death (Zhou et al, 2008; Ye et al, 2004)
To obtain a genetic model of cucumber FW resistance, we analyzed the segregation of the resistant phenotype among the six generations using the mixed major gene plus polygene inheritance model
Summary
Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) is an economically important vegetable crop that ranks fourth in vegetable production worldwide. In the cucumber production season, Fusarium wilt (FW), downy mildew, and powdery mildew are the three main diseases found in China (Cao et al, 2007). FW of cucumber occurs more readily and seriously under a continuous cropping system, with incidences ranging from 30% to 90%, leading to huge loss of cucumber output (Pu et al, 2011; Zhou and Wu, 2012). Cucumerinum Owen (Owen, 1955), which is a forma specialis that infects the vascular bundles of cucumber, leads to necrotic lesions on the stem base, foliar wilting and eventually whole plant wilt, and even death (Zhou et al, 2008; Ye et al, 2004). There are no methods to effectively control the occurrence and harm of cucumber FW (Ye et al, 2004; Yuan et al, 2003)
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