Overexpression of FvGCN5 enhances the resistance of woodland strawberry against Botrytis cinerea.

Epigenetic modifications mediated by histone acetylation play essential roles in plant development and stress response. However, the mechanism of regulating biotic stress through histone acetyltransferase GCN5 in strawberry is still unclear. In this study, we isolated FvGCN5 from woodland strawberry and found that FvGCN5 may form the conserved SAGA (Spt-Ada-Gcn5 acetyltransferase) complex through interaction with FvADA2a and FvADA2b. In addition, we found that FvGCN5 could be significantly induced by the infection of fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea, and that the transgenic strawberry plants overexpressing FvGCN5 exhibited enhanced resistance against B. cinerea. Further RNA-seq-based transcriptome and quantitative PCR analysis indicated that several disease-resistant genes such as FvMYC2 and, FvPR1 were significantly upregulated in FvGCN5 overexpression lines. Taken together, our study indicates that FvGCN5 plays important roles in the resistance against B. cinerea in woodland strawberry through activating disease-resistant genes.