The suppression of tomato defence response genes upon potato cyst nematode infection indicates a key regulatory role of miRNAs.
Potato cyst nematode Globodera rostochiensis is an obligate parasite of solanaceous plants, triggering metabolic and morphological changes in roots which may result in substantial crop yield losses. Previously, we used the cDNA-AFLP to study the transcriptional dynamics in nematode infected tomato roots. Now, we present the rescreening of already published, upregulated transcript-derived fragment dataset using the most current tomato transcriptome sequences. Our reanalysis allowed to add 54 novel genes to 135, already found as upregulated in tomato roots upon G. rostochiensis infection (in total - 189). We also created completely new catalogue of downregulated sequences leading to the discovery of 76 novel genes. Functional classification of candidates showed that the 'wound, stress and defence response' category was enriched in the downregulated genes. We confirmed the transcriptional dynamics of six genes by qRT-PCR. To place our results in a broader context, we compared the tomato data with Arabidopsis thaliana, revealing similar proportions of upregulated and downregulated genes as well as similar enrichment of defence related transcripts in the downregulated group. Since transcript suppression is quite common in plant-nematode interactions, we assessed the possibility of miRNA-mediated inverse correlation on several tomato sequences belonging to NB-LRR and receptor-like kinase families. The qRT-PCR of miRNAs and putative target transcripts showed an opposite expression pattern in 9 cases. These results together with in silico analyses of potential miRNA targeting to the full repertoire of tomato R-genes show that miRNA mediated gene suppression may be a key regulatory mechanism during nematode parasitism.
Department of Plant Genetics, Breeding and Biotechnology, Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW), Nowoursynowska 159, 02-787, Warsaw, Poland.
Magdalena
M
Święcicka
Department of Plant Genetics, Breeding and Biotechnology, Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW), Nowoursynowska 159, 02-787, Warsaw, Poland.
Waldemar
W
Skowron
Department of Plant Genetics, Breeding and Biotechnology, Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW), Nowoursynowska 159, 02-787, Warsaw, Poland.
Piotr
P
Cieszyński
Department of Plant Genetics, Breeding and Biotechnology, Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW), Nowoursynowska 159, 02-787, Warsaw, Poland.
Joanna
J
Dąbrowska-Bronk
Department of Plant Genetics, Breeding and Biotechnology, Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW), Nowoursynowska 159, 02-787, Warsaw, Poland.
Mateusz
M
Matuszkiewicz
Department of Plant Genetics, Breeding and Biotechnology, Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW), Nowoursynowska 159, 02-787, Warsaw, Poland.
Marcin
M
Filipecki
Department of Plant Genetics, Breeding and Biotechnology, Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW), Nowoursynowska 159, 02-787, Warsaw, Poland. Electronic address: marek_koter@sggw.pl.
Marek Daniel
MD
Koter
D054458:Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis / Q000379:methods; D000818:Animals; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D060467:Disease Resistance; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D017343:Genes, Plant; D018551:Solanum lycopersicum / Q000235:genetics* / Q000469:parasitology*; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000235:genetics*; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000235:genetics* / Q000469:parasitology*; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000235:genetics; D011494:Protein Kinases / Q000235:genetics; D011198:Solanum tuberosum / Q000235:genetics; D013489:Suppression, Genetic; D059467:Transcriptome / Q000235:genetics; D014431:Tylenchoidea / Q000235:genetics*
D035683:MicroRNAs; D011494:Protein Kinases
Globodera rostochiensis; Tomato; Transcriptome; cDNA-AFLP; miRNA