Wheat Varietal Response to Tilletia controversa J. G. Kühn Using qRT-PCR and Laser Confocal Microscopy.

Li Gao,Wanquan Chen,Taiguo Liu,Changzhong Liu,Delai Chen,Ghulam Muhae-Ud-Din

doi:10.3390/genes12030425

Abstract

Tilletia controversa J. G. Kühn is a causal organism of dwarf bunt in wheat. Understanding the interaction of wheat and T. controversa is of practical and scientific importance for disease control. In this study, the relative expression of TaLHY and TaPR-4 and TaPR-5 genes was higher in a resistant (Yinong 18) and moderately resistant (Pin 9928) cultivars rather than susceptible (Dongxuan 3) cultivar at 72 h post inoculation (hpi) with T. controversa. Similarly, the expression of defensin, TaPR-2 and TaPR-10 genes was observed higher in resistant and moderately resistant cultivars after exogenous application of phytohormones, including methyl jasmonate, salicylic acid, and abscisic acid. Laser confocal microscopy was used to track the fungal hyphae in the roots, leaves, and tapetum cells, which of susceptible cultivar were infected harshly by T. controversa than moderately resistant and resistant cultivars. There were no fungal hyphae in tapetum cells in susceptible cultivar after methyl jasmonate, salicylic acid and abscisic acid treatments. Moreover, after T. controversa infection, the pollen germination was of 80.06, 58.73, and 0.67% in resistant, moderately resistant and susceptible cultivars, respectively. The above results suggested that the use using of resistant cultivar is a good option against the dwarf bunt disease.

Highlights

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L) is one of the most important staple food crops throughout the world
We investigated the expression of PRs genes (TaPR-4 and TaPR-5) the MYB transcription factor (TaLHY) genes and the role of exogenous hormones (MeJa, salicylic acid (SA) and abscisic acid (ABA)) in the induction of PRs genes expression in resistant, moderately resistant and susceptible wheat cultivars against dwarf bunt disease
The results showed that at 36 h post inoculation, the relative expression of TaLHY in resistance cultivar was significantly up-regulated compared to moderately resistant and susceptible cultivars by comparing the expression at 0 hpi (p < 0.05), the expression of which increased to 2.28-fold

Summary

Introduction

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L) is one of the most important staple food crops throughout the world. Dwarf bunt is caused by T. controversa and is an economically devastating disease of winter wheat [2]. The disease is a seed and soil-borne and appeared in cold areas of the world [3,4]. The pathogen has the extreme potential to grow when persistent and deep snow occurs before the soil become frozen, which provides a long period of cool, stable, and humid conditions that are suitable for teliospore germination and infection. T. controversa is an important quarantine pathogen and many countries have strict restriction for importing wheat grains infected by it [5,6]. The closely related species of T. controversa are T. caries and T. foetida, causing common bunt of wheat, are more widely distributed in the world.

Methods

Results

Conclusion