State Key Laboratory of Crop Biology, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai an, 271018, China.
State Key Laboratory of Crop Biology, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai an, 271018, China.
Plant Physiol Biochem. 2022 Dec 15;193:78-89. doi: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2022.10.029. Epub 2022 Nov 2.
Banded leaf and sheath blight (BLSB) is a devasting disease caused by the necrotrophic fungus Rhizoctonia solani that affects maize (Zea mays L.) fields worldwide, especially in China and Southeast Asia. Understanding how maize plants respond to R. solani infection is a key step towards controlling the spread of this fungal pathogen. In this study, we determined the transcriptome of maize plants infected by a low-virulence strain (LVS) and a high-virulence strain (HVS) of R. solani for 3 and 5 days by transcriptome deep-sequencing (RNA-seq). We identified 3,015 (for LVS infection) and 1,628 (for HVS infection) differentially expressed genes (DEGs). We confirmed the expression profiles of 10 randomly selected DEGs by quantitative reverse transcription PCR. We also performed a Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis to establish which biological processes are associated with these DEGs, which revealed the enrichment of defense-related GO terms in LVS- and HVS-regulated genes. We selected 388 DEGs upregulated upon fungal infection as possible candidate genes. Among them, the overexpression of ZmNAC41 (encoding NAC transcription factor 41) or ZmBAK1 (encoding BRASSINOSTEROID INSENSITIVE 1-associated receptor kinase 1) in rice enhanced resistance to R. solani. In addition, overexpressing ZmBAK1 in rice also increased plant height, plant weight, thousand-grain weight, and grain length. The identification of 388 potential key maize genes related to resistance to R. solani provides significant insights into improving BLSB resistance.
带叶鞘枯斑病（Banded leaf and sheath blight，BLSB）是一种由坏死型真菌立枯丝核菌引起的毁灭性病害，影响全球范围内的玉米（Zea mays L.）田，尤其在中国和东南亚地区。了解玉米植株如何应对立枯丝核菌的感染是控制这种真菌病原体传播的关键步骤。在这项研究中，我们通过转录组深度测序（RNA-seq）确定了感染低毒力菌株（LVS）和高毒力菌株（HVS）立枯丝核菌的玉米植株在 3 天和 5 天的转录组。我们鉴定了 3015 个（用于 LVS 感染）和 1628 个（用于 HVS 感染）差异表达基因（DEGs）。我们通过定量逆转录 PCR 验证了 10 个随机选择的 DEGs 的表达谱。我们还进行了基因本体论（GO）富集分析，以确定哪些生物过程与这些 DEGs 相关，这揭示了防御相关 GO 术语在 LVS 和 HVS 调控基因中的富集。我们选择了 388 个在真菌感染后上调的 DEGs 作为可能的候选基因。其中，ZmNAC41（编码 NAC 转录因子 41）或 ZmBAK1（编码 BRASSINOSTEROID INSENSITIVE 1-associated receptor kinase 1）在水稻中的过表达增强了对立枯丝核菌的抗性。此外，在水稻中过表达 ZmBAK1 还增加了株高、植株重量、千粒重和粒长。鉴定出的 388 个与玉米对立枯丝核菌抗性相关的潜在关键基因，为提高 BLSB 抗性提供了重要的见解。
