Transcriptomic Profiling Reveals Regulatory Pathways of Tomato in Resistance to Verticillium Wilt Triggered by VdR3e

Tomatoes are important horticultural crops worldwide. Verticillium wilt is a disease caused by Verticillium dahliae that causes serious tomato yield losses. V. dahliae can be classified into three distinct races in tomatoes. We identified the specific VdR3e gene of V. dahliae race 3 and found that VdR3e triggered immune responses in the resistant tomato cultivar IVF6384. We confirmed that VdR3e triggers immune responses in the parents of IVF6384 plants and conducted transcriptome sequencing between male and female IVF6384 plants after VdR3e infiltration to analyze the potential regulatory network response to VdR3e. We found that both parents had a series of detoxification and stress resistance responses to VdR3e, but those of the male IVF6384 parent were concentrated in disease resistance-related signaling pathways. Moreover, several vital differentially expressed genes involved in functional annotation related to plant-pathogen interactions and plant hormone signaling stimulated immune responses in Nicotiana benthamiana. This study provides a new and comprehensive perspective on tomato resistance to Verticillium wilt.