Identification of candidate susceptibility genes to Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici in wheat [journal]

Journal

Frontiers in Plant Science - April 21, 2021

Authors

Eva C Henningsen, Vahid Omidvar, Rafael Della Coletta, Jean-Michel Michno, Erin Gilbert, Feng Li, Marisa Miller, Chad L Myers (professor), Sean P Gordon, John P Vogel, Brian J Steffenson, Shahryar F Kianian, Cory D Hirsch, Melania Figueroa

Abstract

Wheat stem rust disease caused by Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici (Pgt) is a global threat to wheat production. Fast evolving populations of Pgt limit the efficacy of plant genetic resistance and constrain disease management strategies. Understanding molecular mechanisms that lead to rust infection and disease susceptibility could deliver novel strategies to deploy crop resistance through genetic loss of disease susceptibility. We used comparative transcriptome-based and orthology-guided approaches to characterize gene expression changes associated with Pgt infection in susceptible and resistant Triticum aestivum genotypes as well as the non-host Brachypodium distachyon. We targeted our analysis to genes with differential expression in T. aestivum and genes suppressed or not affected in B. distachyon and report several processes potentially linked to susceptibility to Pgt, such as cell death suppression and impairment of photosynthesis. We complemented our approach with a gene co-expression network analysis to identify wheat targets to deliver resistance to Pgt through removal or modification of putative susceptibility gene.

Link to full paper

Identification of candidate susceptibility genes to Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici in wheat

Keywords

bioinformatics, computational biology