Location: Crop Production and Pest Control Research
Project Number: 5020-21000-001-002-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jul 1, 2022
End Date: Jun 30, 2025
Objective:
1) Identify novel genes and gene products during interaction of greenbug with wheat and other cereal crops and model genomes.
(ii) Functional analysis of candidate genes associated with greenbug virulence to better understand the modes and mechanisms involving plant susceptibility.
(iii) Decipher the role of microbial communities and core bacterial endosymbionts (e.g. Buchnera) in virus transmission and host susceptibility in cereal aphids.
Approach:
We will carry out collaborative research to undertake transcriptomics of greenbugs feeding on cereals. Differentially expressed genes will be identified and their expression will be validated by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). Putative candidate aphid-virulence genes will be selected for functional characterization studies to determine their role in inducing plant susceptibility. Gene expression using qRT-PCR will be used to reveal the role of Buchnera, an endosymbiont of aphids, in virus transmission and their influence on host susceptibility. Metabarcoding approaches that use next generation sequencing will be applied to characterize entire cereal aphid microbial communities and identify changes associated with host susceptibility and virus transmission.
