design: Susceptible cowpea unifoliate leaves were enclosed in a mesh sleeve bag for 6 days. Samples were collected at 6days post-enclosure. Each sample consisted of three unifoliate leaves pooled from three plants. Sample collection was performed by removing the cage and immersing the leaves in water and gently brushing with a fine-tip paintbrush. Leaves were immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80C until RNA extraction through NucleoSpin RNA Plant kit (Macherey-Nagel).