EFS12- Book of abstracts - Contact
EFS12- Book of abstracts - Contact
EFS12- Book of abstracts - Contact
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SESSION 4: GENETICS OF HOSTS – PLANT RESISTANCE TO FUSARIUM,<br />
VARIETY DEVELOPMENT<br />
P103 - RNA-Sequencing as a tool for the analysis <strong>of</strong><br />
the pathosystem maize-Fusarium verticillioides<br />
A. Lanubile, V. Maschietto, A. Marocco<br />
Institute <strong>of</strong> Agronomy, Genetics and Field Crops, University Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Via Emilia<br />
Parmense 84, 29122 Piacenza, Italy<br />
E-mail: alessandra.lanubile@unicatt.it<br />
Fusarium verticillioides is the causal agent <strong>of</strong> Fusarium ear rot in maize and<br />
contaminates the grain with fumonisins, a family <strong>of</strong> mycotoxins that affects feed<br />
and food. Concern is increasing about the fumonisins because <strong>of</strong> emerginig<br />
evidences <strong>of</strong> their involvement in several human and animal diseases.<br />
To clarify the molecular processes undergoing in maize upon infection, the RNA-<br />
Seq technology has been applied to characterize the expression pr<strong>of</strong>ile <strong>of</strong><br />
resistant and susceptible kernels <strong>of</strong> maize 72 hours after F. verticillioides<br />
infection.<br />
More than 100 million sequence reads were generated for condition<br />
(infected/uninfected). The sequence reads were analyzed to measure gene<br />
expression levels, to detect alternative splicing events and single nucleotide<br />
polymorphisms. We observed 2,006 and 2,629 differentially expressed genes 72<br />
hours after infection for the resistant and susceptible maize genotypes,<br />
respectively, <strong>of</strong> which 927 were in common and showed 5,342 SNPs variants.<br />
About 320,000 and 175,000 reads mapped on Fusarium genome in the<br />
susceptible and resistant genotypes, respectively, and 129 fungal genes were<br />
differentially regulated in both lines. This exhaustive overview <strong>of</strong> gene expression<br />
dynamics demonstrates the utility <strong>of</strong> RNA-Seq for identifying single nucleotide<br />
polymorphisms and describing how plant transcriptomes change during pathogen<br />
infection. The identification <strong>of</strong> differentially expressed plant genes that interact<br />
with fungus will produce useful tools for the identification <strong>of</strong> candidate genes, the<br />
development <strong>of</strong> molecular markers and their use for selection <strong>of</strong> resistant maize<br />
genotypes by means <strong>of</strong> marker assisted selection.<br />
Keywords: RNA-Seq, candidate genes, Fusarium verticillioides, Zea mays<br />
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