Centro de Estudios Fotosintéticos y Bioquímicos, Facultad de Ciencias Bioquímicas y Farmacéuticas, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Rosario, Argentina.
PLoS One. 2013 Apr 18;8(4):e61580. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0061580. Print 2013.
Fusarium verticillioides causes ear rot and grain mycotoxins in maize (Zea mays L.), which are harmful to human and animal health. Breeding and growing less susceptible plant genotypes is one alternative to reduce these detrimental effects. A better understanding of the resistance mechanisms would facilitate the implementation of strategic molecular agriculture to breeding of resistant germplasm. Our aim was to identify genes and metabolites that may be related to the Fusarium reaction in a resistant (L4637) and a susceptible (L4674) inbred. Gene expression data were obtained from microarray hybridizations in inoculated and non-inoculated kernels from both inbreds. Fungal inoculation did not produce considerable changes in gene expression and metabolites in L4637. Defense-related genes changed in L4674 kernels, responding specifically to the pathogen infection. These results indicate that L4637 resistance may be mainly due to constitutive defense mechanisms preventing fungal infection. These mechanisms seem to be poorly expressed in L4674; and despite the inoculation activate a defense response; this is not enough to prevent the disease progress in this susceptible line. Through this study, a global view of differential genes expressed and metabolites accumulated during resistance and susceptibility to F. verticillioides inoculation has been obtained, giving additional information about the mechanisms and pathways conferring resistance to this important disease in maize.
串珠镰刀菌引起玉米（Zea mays L.）的穗腐病和谷物霉菌毒素，这对人类和动物健康有害。培育和种植敏感性较低的植物基因型是减少这些有害影响的一种方法。更好地了解抗性机制将有助于实施战略性分子农业，以培育抗性种质。我们的目的是鉴定与抗性（L4637）和敏感性（L4674）自交系中镰刀菌反应相关的基因和代谢物。通过对来自两个自交系的接种和未接种的玉米粒进行微阵列杂交，获得了基因表达数据。真菌接种未在 L4637 中产生显著的基因表达和代谢物变化。防御相关基因在 L4674 玉米粒中发生变化，特异性响应病原体感染。这些结果表明，L4637 的抗性可能主要归因于阻止真菌感染的组成型防御机制。这些机制在 L4674 中似乎表达不佳；尽管接种会激活防御反应，但这不足以阻止该敏感系中疾病的进展。通过这项研究，我们获得了对串珠镰刀菌接种后抗性和敏感性过程中差异表达基因和积累代谢物的全面了解，为玉米对这种重要疾病的抗性机制和途径提供了更多信息。
