Zhao Xiaoqiang, Zhang Fan, Chen Xiaoqing, Zhang Chongyuan, Zhang Haoyi, Wang Tian, Zhang Jinzhe, He Cheng, Wang Shuo, Zhang Xinjie, Meng Xi, Nekrasov Vladimir, Kong Liang, Dong Suomeng
State Key Laboratory of Agricultural and Forestry Biosecurity, College of Plant Protection, The Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Crop Diseases and Pests, Ministry of Education, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, 210095, China.
State Key Laboratory of Vegetable Biobreeding, Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China.
J Integr Plant Biol. 2025 Jul;67(7):1910-1927. doi: 10.1111/jipb.13892. Epub 2025 Mar 24.
Late blight, caused by the oomycete plant pathogen Phytophthora infestans, is a destructive disease that leads to significant yield loss in potatoes and tomatoes. The introgression of disease resistance (R) genes, which encode nucleotide-binding domain leucine-rich repeat-containing receptors (NLRs), into cultivated potatoes, is highly effective in controlling late blight. Here, we generated transgenic 2R and 3R potato lines by stacking R genes Rpi-blb2/Rpi-vnt1.1 and Rpi-vnt1.1/RB/R8, respectively, in the susceptible cv. Desiree background. The resulting 2R and 3R transgenic potato plants showed resistance to highly virulent P. infestans field isolates. We hypothesized that stacking R genes either resulted in up-regulation of a broader range of immune-related genes, or, more importantly, increase in the fold change of gene expression. To test our hypotheses, we performed transcriptome analysis and identified a subset of core immune-related genes that are induced in response to P. infestans in transgenic lines carrying single R genes versus lines carrying stacks of multiple R genes. In our analysis, stacking R genes resulted not only in the induction of a broader range of defense-associated genes but also a global increase in gene expression fold change, caused by the pathogen. We further demonstrated that the calcium-dependent protein kinase 16 (StCDPK16) gene significantly contributed to resistance to a virulent P. infestans strain, in the R gene background, in a kinase activity-dependent manner. Thus, our data suggest that stacking the R genes enhances late blight resistance through modulating the expression of a broader range of defense-related genes and highlights StCDPK16 as a novel player in potato R gene-mediated resistance.
晚疫病由卵菌植物病原菌致病疫霉（Phytophthora infestans）引起，是一种破坏性病害，会导致马铃薯和番茄产量大幅损失。将编码含核苷酸结合域富亮氨酸重复序列受体（NLRs）的抗病（R）基因导入栽培马铃薯中，对控制晚疫病非常有效。在此，我们通过分别在感病品种德西蕾（cv. Desiree）背景下堆叠R基因Rpi - blb2/Rpi - vnt1.1和Rpi - vnt1.1/RB/R8，培育出了转基因2R和3R马铃薯品系。所得的2R和3R转基因马铃薯植株对高毒力的致病疫霉田间分离株表现出抗性。我们推测，堆叠R基因要么导致更广泛的免疫相关基因上调，要么更重要的是，基因表达的倍数变化增加。为了验证我们的假设，我们进行了转录组分析，并鉴定了一组核心免疫相关基因，这些基因在携带单个R基因的转基因系与携带多个R基因堆叠的系中对致病疫霉的反应中被诱导。在我们的分析中，堆叠R基因不仅导致更广泛的防御相关基因被诱导，而且还导致病原体引起的基因表达倍数变化整体增加。我们进一步证明，在R基因背景下，钙依赖性蛋白激酶16（StCDPK16）基因以激酶活性依赖的方式对高毒力致病疫霉菌株的抗性有显著贡献。因此，我们的数据表明，堆叠R基因通过调节更广泛的防御相关基因的表达来增强晚疫病抗性，并突出了StCDPK16作为马铃薯R基因介导抗性中的一个新角色。
