Enhances the Resistance of to f. sp. (FOV) by Regulating the Content of Flavonoid.

Sulfotransferases (SOTs) (EC 2.8.2.-) are sulfate regulatory proteins in a variety of organisms that have been previously shown to be involved in regulating a variety of physiological and biological processes, such as growth, development, adaptation to land, stomatal closure, drought tolerance, and response to pathogen infection. However, there is a lack of comprehensive identification and systematic analysis of in cotton, especially in . In this study, we used bioinformatics methods to analyze the structural characteristics, phylogenetic relationships, gene structure, expression patterns, evolutionary relationships, selection pressure and stress response of gene family members in . In this study, a total of 241 genes were identified in four cotton species, among which 74 gene members were found in . According to the phylogenetic tree, 241 protein sequences were divided into five distinct subfamilies. We also mapped the physical locations of these genes on chromosomes and visualized the structural information of genes in . We also predicted the -acting elements of the gene in , and we identified the repetitive types and collinearity analysis of genes in four cotton species. We calculated the Ka/Ks ratio between homologous gene pairs to elucidate the selective pressure between genes. Transcriptome data were used to explore the expression patterns of genes, and then qRT-PCR was used to detect the expression patterns of , and under FOV stress. WGCNA (weighted gene co-expression network analysis) showed that () belonged to the MEblue module, which may regulate the resistance mechanism of to FOV through plant hormones, signal transduction and glutathione metabolism. In addition, we conducted a VIGS (virus-induced gene silencing) experiment on , and the results showed that after FOV inoculation, the plants with a silenced target gene had more serious leaf wilting, drying and cracking than the control group, and the disease index of the plants with the silenced target gene was significantly higher than that of the control group. This suggests that may be involved in protecting the production of from FOV infection. Subsequent metabolomics analysis showed that some flavonoid metabolites, such as Eupatorin-5-methylether (3'-hydroxy-5,6,7,4'-tetramethoxyflavone, were accumulated in cotton plants in response to FOV infection.