Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 6, 2026
Purification of High Molecular Weight Genomic DNA from Powdery Mildew for Long-Read Sequencing
Published on: March 31, 2017
Comparative Transcriptomic and Microscopic Analyses of a Wild Wheat Relative Reveal Novel Mechanisms of Immune
Rune Hansen1,2, Wagner C Fagundes1,2, Eva H Stukenbrock1,2
1Botanical Institute, Christian-Albrechts University, 24118 Kiel, Germany.
Abstract:
The plant-pathogenic fungus Zymoseptoria tritici is the causal agent of the devasting Septoria tritici blotch, a major wheat disease, with limited resistance genes identified. Aegilops cylindrica, a wild relative of wheat, is resistant to Z. tritici isolates originating from cultivated wheat but susceptible to Z. tritici isolates derived from Aegilops species. Therefore, A. cylindrica provides an intriguing model system to identify novel resistance genes against Z. tritici. We integrated plant infection experiments, advanced microscopy, and comparative transcriptome analyses to identify new putative resistance mechanisms against Z. tritici. We therefore constructed a de novo transcriptome assembly of A. cylindrica during compatible and incompatible plant-pathogen interactions across different infection stages using the two Z. tritici isolates Zt469 and IPO323. Our microscope analyses identified the substomatal cavity as a crucial checkpoint for Z. tritici infection, where infection by incompatible isolates is aborted. In the compatible interaction, based on the transcriptome analyses, we reveal suppression of several key resistance-associated genes, including homologues of known resistance genes (e.g., RPM1- and RPP13-like) and certain pathogenesis related (PR) genes encoding various lipid transfer proteins (PR-14) and an apoplastic subtilisin-like protease SBT3.6-like (PR-7), none so far known to be involved in resistance toward Z. tritici. In the incompatible interaction, we found a different set of upregulated genes compared with genes upregulated in the immune response in resistant wheat cultivars. The de novo transcriptome assembly presented here provides a new valuable resource for wheat genetics and points to novel immune pathways that may determine resistance against Z. tritici. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
