[Silencing genes accelerated senescence and enhanced disease resistance in soybean].

Autophagy plays an essential role in recycling/re-utilizing nutrients and in adaptions to numerous stresses. However, the roles of autophagy in soybean have not been investigated extensively. In this study, a virus-induced gene silencing approach mediated by bean pod mottle virus (BPMV) was used to silence () genes in soybean (referred to as ). Our results showed that ATG8 proteins were massively accumulated in the dark-treated leaves of the -silenced plants relative to the vector control plants (BPMV-0), indicating that autophagy pathway is impaired in the -silenced plants. Consistent with the impaired autophagy, an accelerated senescence phenotype was observed on the leaves of the dark-treated -silenced plants, which was not shown on the leaves of the dark-treated BPMV-0 plants. In addition, the accumulation levels of both reactive oxygen species (ROS) and salicylic acid (SA) were significantly induced in the -silenced plants compared with that of the vector control plants (BPMV-0), indicating an activated immunity. Accordingly, the -silenced plants exhibited significantly enhanced resistance against pv. () in comparison with the BPMV-0 plants. Nevertheless, the activated immunity observed in the -silenced plant was independent of the activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK).