Global RNA profiling of susceptible and tolerant genotypes of Brassica napus infected with Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and prediction and functional characterization of novel regulators of plant defense

Description

Brassica napus (L.) contributes over $19 billion dollars each year to the Canadian economy. However, yields are constantly threatened by Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib) de Bary, the fungus responsible for Sclerotinia stem rot. To date, there are no global RNA profiling data or gene regulatory analyses of plant tissues directly at the main site of foliar infection in the B. napus-S. sclerotiorum pathosystem. Using RNA sequencing and a gene regulatory analysis, I discovered putative transcriptional regulators of biological processes associated with the tolerant phenotype of B. napus cv. Zhougyou821 including subcellular localization of proteins, pathogen detection, and redox homeostasis. Functional characterization of Arabidopsis mutants identified a number of genes that contribute directly to plant defense to S. sclerotiorum. Together this research amounts to the expansion of our understanding of the B. napus-S. sclerotiorum pathosystem and a valuable resource to help protect B. napus crops from virulent pathogens such as S. sclerotiorum. / October 2016

Links & Downloads

1. Girard, I. J., Mcloughlin, A. G., de Kievit, T. R., Fernando, D. W. G., & Belmonte, M. F (2016). Integrating Large-Scale Data and RNA Technology to Protect Crops from Fungal Pathogens. Frontiers in Plant Science, 7, 1-7. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2016.00631
2. Girard, I. J., Tong, C., Mao, X., Becker, M. G., Huang, J., de Kievit, T. R., Fernando, D. W. G., Liu, S., & Belmonte, M. F. (2016). RNA profiling of the Sclerotinia sclerotiorum-Brassica napus pathosystem reveals crosstalk between redox and hormone pathways. Molecular Plant, submitted: June 30th 2016
3. http://hdl.handle.net/1993/31862

Tags

RNA sequencing

Plant-pathogen interactions

Additional Fields

Identifer	oai:union.ndltd.org:MANITOBA/oai:mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca:1993/31862
Date	January 2016
Creators	Girard, Ian
Contributors	Belmonte, Mark (Biological Sciences) Fernando, Dilantha (Plant Sciences), Belmonte, Mark (Biological Sciences) Fernando, Dilantha (Plant Sciences) Chen, Guanqun (Biological Sciences)
Publisher	Frontiers, Molecular Plant
Source Sets	University of Manitoba Canada
Detected Language	English