Is Associated with Verticillium Wilt Resistance in Cotton.

Verticillium wilt (VW) is a typical fungal disease affecting the yield and quality of cotton. The Trichome Birefringence-Like protein (TBL) is an acetyltransferase involved in the acetylation process of cell wall polysaccharides. Up to now, there are no reports on whether the gene is related to disease resistance in cotton. In this study, we cloned a cotton gene located in the confidence interval of a major VW resistance quantitative trait loci and demonstrated its relationship with VW resistance in cotton. Analyzing the sequence variations in resistant and susceptible accessions detected two elite alleles  and , mainly presented in resistant cotton lines whose disease index was significantly lower than that of susceptible lines carrying the allele . Comparing the TBL34 protein sequences showed that two amino acid differences in the TBL (PMR5N) domain changed the susceptible allele GhTBL34-1 into the resistant allele GhTBL34-2 (GhTBL34-3). Expression analysis showed that the was obviously up-regulated by infection of and exogenous treatment of ethylene (ET), and salicylic acid (SA) and jasmonate (JA) in cotton. VIGS experiments demonstrated that silencing of reduced VW resistance in cotton. We deduced that the gene mediating acetylation of cell wall polysaccharides might be involved in the regulation of resistance to VW in cotton.