Silencing () Results in Accelerated Senescence and Enhanced Immunity in Soybean.

Autophagy plays a critical role in nutrient recycling and stress adaptations. However, the role of autophagy has not been extensively investigated in crop plants. In this study, soybean () was silenced, using virus-induced silencing (VIGS) mediated by (BPMV). An accelerated senescence phenotype was exclusively observed for the silenced plants under dark conditions. In addition, significantly increased accumulation of both ROS and SA as well as a significantly induced expression of the pathogenesis-related gene 1 () were also observed on the leaves of the silenced plants, indicating an activated immune response. Consistent with this, -silenced plants exhibited a significantly enhanced resistance to pv. (Psg) relative to empty vector control plants (BPMV-0). Notably, the activated immunity of the silenced plants was independent of the MAPK signaling pathway. The fact that the accumulation levels of ATG8 protein and poly-ubiquitinated proteins were significantly increased in the dark-treated silenced plants relative to the BPMV-0 plants indicated that the autophagic degradation is compromised in the silenced plants. Together, our results indicated that silencing compromises the autophagy pathway, and the autophagy pathway is conserved in different plant species.