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Nihranz CT, Guzchenko IA, Casteel CL. Silencing ZmPP2C-A10 with a foxtail mosaic virus (FoMV) derived vector benefits maize growth and development following water limitation. Plant Biol (Stuttg) 2023; 25:956-964. [PMID: 37658795 DOI: 10.1111/plb.13568] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/21/2023] [Accepted: 07/23/2023] [Indexed: 09/05/2023]
Abstract
Global climate change is causing more frequent and severe droughts, which can have negative impacts on plant growth and crop productivity. Under drought conditions, plants produce the hormone ABA (abscisic acid), which regulates adaptive responses, such as stomatal closure and root elongation. Plant viruses have been used in the lab to convey new traits to plants and could also be used to increase production of ABA or to enhance downstream plant drought resistance responses. In this study, foxtail mosaic virus (FoMV) was used to silence ZmPP2C-A10, a negative regulator of ABA signalling, in maize (Zea mays L.). Both silenced and control plants were exposed to an 8-day drought treatment, followed by a 30-day period of rewatering, after which indicators of drought resistance were measured. After drought treatment, we observed a nearly twofold increase in expression of a stress-mitigation gene, ZmRAB17, reduced chlorophyll fluorescence changes (indicator of stress), and increased plant biomass and development in the ZmPP2C-A10-silenced maize compared to controls. These results demonstrate that the FoMV system can be used to silence endogenous expression of ZmPP2C-A10 and increase maize tolerance to drought. This could offer a useful tool to improve crop traits and reduce yield loss during the growing season.
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Affiliation(s)
- C T Nihranz
- Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology, School of Integrative Plant Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
| | - I A Guzchenko
- Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology, School of Integrative Plant Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
| | - C L Casteel
- Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology, School of Integrative Plant Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
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Chen H, King R, Smith D, Bayon C, Ashfield T, Torriani S, Kanyuka K, Hammond-Kosack K, Bieri S, Rudd J. Combined pangenomics and transcriptomics reveals core and redundant virulence processes in a rapidly evolving fungal plant pathogen. BMC Biol 2023; 21:24. [PMID: 36747219 PMCID: PMC9903594 DOI: 10.1186/s12915-023-01520-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2022] [Accepted: 01/19/2023] [Indexed: 02/08/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Studying genomic variation in rapidly evolving pathogens potentially enables identification of genes supporting their "core biology", being present, functional and expressed by all strains or "flexible biology", varying between strains. Genes supporting flexible biology may be considered to be "accessory", whilst the "core" gene set is likely to be important for common features of a pathogen species biology, including virulence on all host genotypes. The wheat-pathogenic fungus Zymoseptoria tritici represents one of the most rapidly evolving threats to global food security and was the focus of this study. RESULTS We constructed a pangenome of 18 European field isolates, with 12 also subjected to RNAseq transcription profiling during infection. Combining this data, we predicted a "core" gene set comprising 9807 sequences which were (1) present in all isolates, (2) lacking inactivating polymorphisms and (3) expressed by all isolates. A large accessory genome, consisting of 45% of the total genes, was also defined. We classified genetic and genomic polymorphism at both chromosomal and individual gene scales. Proteins required for essential functions including virulence had lower-than average sequence variability amongst core genes. Both core and accessory genomes encoded many small, secreted candidate effector proteins that likely interact with plant immunity. Viral vector-mediated transient in planta overexpression of 88 candidates failed to identify any which induced leaf necrosis characteristic of disease. However, functional complementation of a non-pathogenic deletion mutant lacking five core genes demonstrated that full virulence was restored by re-introduction of the single gene exhibiting least sequence polymorphism and highest expression. CONCLUSIONS These data support the combined use of pangenomics and transcriptomics for defining genes which represent core, and potentially exploitable, weaknesses in rapidly evolving pathogens.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hongxin Chen
- grid.418374.d0000 0001 2227 9389Department of Protecting Crops and the Environment, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts UK ,grid.12981.330000 0001 2360 039XPresent address: School of Agriculture, Shenzhen Campus of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangming District, Shenzhen, Guangdong People’s Republic of China
| | - Robert King
- grid.418374.d0000 0001 2227 9389Department of Protecting Crops and the Environment, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts UK
| | - Dan Smith
- grid.418374.d0000 0001 2227 9389Department of Protecting Crops and the Environment, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts UK
| | - Carlos Bayon
- grid.418374.d0000 0001 2227 9389Department of Protecting Crops and the Environment, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts UK
| | - Tom Ashfield
- grid.418374.d0000 0001 2227 9389Department of Protecting Crops and the Environment, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts UK ,grid.418374.d0000 0001 2227 9389Crop Health and Protection (CHaP), Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts UK
| | - Stefano Torriani
- grid.420222.40000 0001 0669 0426Syngenta Crop Protection AG, Schaffhauserstrasse 101, CH-4332 Stein, Switzerland
| | - Kostya Kanyuka
- grid.418374.d0000 0001 2227 9389Department of Protecting Crops and the Environment, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts UK ,grid.17595.3f0000 0004 0383 6532Present address: National Institute for Agricultural Botany (NIAB), 93 Lawrence Weaver Road, Cambridge, UK
| | - Kim Hammond-Kosack
- grid.418374.d0000 0001 2227 9389Department of Protecting Crops and the Environment, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts UK
| | - Stephane Bieri
- grid.420222.40000 0001 0669 0426Syngenta Crop Protection AG, Schaffhauserstrasse 101, CH-4332 Stein, Switzerland
| | - Jason Rudd
- Department of Protecting Crops and the Environment, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts, UK.
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Abstract
This article comments on:
Yuan C, Li H, Qin C, Zhang X, Chen Q, Zhang P, Xu X, He M, Zhang X, Tör M, Xue Dawei, Wang H, Jackson S, He Y, Liu Y, Shi N, Hong Y. 2020. Foxtail mosaic virus-induced flowering assays in monocot crops. Journal of Experimental Botany 71, 3012–3023.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brian G Ayre
- BioDiscovery Institute and Department of Biological Sciences, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA
| | - Fathy E El-Gebaly
- Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Tanta University, Tanta, Egypt
| | - Roisin C McGarry
- BioDiscovery Institute and Department of Biological Sciences, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA
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Burkhow SJ, Stephens NM, Mei Y, Dueñas ME, Freppon DJ, Ding G, Smith SC, Lee YJ, Nikolau BJ, Whitham SA, Smith EA. Characterizing virus-induced gene silencing at the cellular level with in situ multimodal imaging. Plant Methods 2018; 14:37. [PMID: 29849743 PMCID: PMC5968576 DOI: 10.1186/s13007-018-0306-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2018] [Accepted: 05/12/2018] [Indexed: 05/02/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Reverse genetic strategies, such as virus-induced gene silencing, are powerful techniques to study gene function. Currently, there are few tools to study the spatial dependence of the consequences of gene silencing at the cellular level. RESULTS We report the use of multimodal Raman and mass spectrometry imaging to study the cellular-level biochemical changes that occur from silencing the phytoene desaturase (pds) gene using a Foxtail mosaic virus (FoMV) vector in maize leaves. The multimodal imaging method allows the localized carotenoid distribution to be measured and reveals differences lost in the spatial average when analyzing a carotenoid extraction of the whole leaf. The nature of the Raman and mass spectrometry signals are complementary: silencing pds reduces the downstream carotenoid Raman signal and increases the phytoene mass spectrometry signal. CONCLUSIONS Both Raman and mass spectrometry imaging show that the biochemical changes from FoMV-pds silencing occur with a mosaic spatial pattern at the cellular level, and the Raman images show carotenoid expression was reduced at discrete locations but not eliminated. The data indicate the multimodal imaging method has great utility to study the biochemical changes that result from gene silencing at the cellular spatial level of expression in many plant tissues including the stem and leaf. Our demonstrated method is the first to spatially characterize the biochemical changes as a result of VIGS at the cellular level using commonly available instrumentation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sadie J. Burkhow
- The Ames Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3111 USA
- Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3111 USA
| | - Nicole M. Stephens
- The Ames Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3111 USA
- Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3111 USA
| | - Yu Mei
- Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 USA
| | - Maria Emilia Dueñas
- The Ames Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3111 USA
- Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3111 USA
| | - Daniel J. Freppon
- The Ames Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3111 USA
- Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3111 USA
| | - Geng Ding
- Department of Biochemistry Biophysics, and Molecular Biology, Center for Metabolic Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 USA
| | - Shea C. Smith
- Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 USA
| | - Young-Jin Lee
- The Ames Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3111 USA
- Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3111 USA
| | - Basil J. Nikolau
- Department of Biochemistry Biophysics, and Molecular Biology, Center for Metabolic Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 USA
| | - Steven A. Whitham
- Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 USA
| | - Emily A. Smith
- The Ames Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3111 USA
- Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3111 USA
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