Identification of Differentially Expressed Genes Associated with Wheat Resistance and Susceptibility against Fusarium Head Blight.

Citation

Pan, Y., Liu, Z., Rocheleau, H., Wang, Y., Fauteux, F., McCartney, C., Ouellet, T. 2017. Identification of Differentially Expressed Genes Associated with Wheat Resistance and Susceptibility against Fusarium Head Blight. Wheat Science and Business Meeting, Saskatoon, November 8-9, 2017.

Abstract

We recently studied gene differential expression across four wheat lines: Wuhan 1 (Type II FHB resistant), Nyubai (Type I FHB resistant), HC374 (a FHB resistant double haploid line derived from crossing Wuhan 1 with Nyubai), and Shaw (a FHB susceptible cultivar). Our results showed that transcript concentration of the pathogen in the host plants was the highest in the susceptible Shaw and lower in Nyubai and Wuhan 1, and increased across the wheat host plants from 2 to 4 dpi; these were confirmed by RT-qPCR Fg-GAPDH estimation of fungal biomass and DON concentration with a correlations at 0.97 and 0.99, respectively. Differential gene expression analyses were performed between each F. graminearum treated sample and the corresponding water mock treated sample, between the two parental cultivars, Wuhan 1 and Nyubai, and between the resistant plants and the susceptible Shaw in their response to either F. graminearum or water mock treatment. In comparisons between F. graminearum treated samples and their water mock treated counterparts, the number of DEGs of both host and pathogen were highest in the susceptible host Shaw. In the comparisons between F. graminearum and water treated samples, or between resistant plants and susceptible Shaw after F. graminearum treatment, the number of DEGs were generally higher at 4 than 2 dpi and the two parental cultivars had higher number of DEGs than the DH line. The NF-X1-type zinc finger protein NFXL1 was shown to contribute to FHB susceptibility and glutathione S-transferase (GST) to FHB resistance in wheat. More detailed analyses including gene ontology enrichment, network and pathway analyses, and their association analysis with QTL and eQTL reported in literature, functional gene discovery, RT-qPCR validation and experimental evidence using transient gene silencing will be presented.

Publication date

2017-11-08

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