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ARS Home » Midwest Area » East Lansing, Michigan » Sugarbeet and Bean Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #125616
Title: MOLECULAR AND BIOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF THE DEFENSE RESPONSE OF SUGARBEET TAP ROOTS TO INFECTION BY RHIZOCTONIA SOLANI

Author
item NAGENDRAN, SUBASHINI - MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
item DE LOS REYES, BENILDO - UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS
item Halloin, John
item McGrath, Jon

Submitted to: National American Phytopathology Meetings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/27/2001
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Rhizoctonia crown and root rot is a serious disease of sugar beets in the US. Warm weather of mid-summer favors the development of rot, but by mid- August, the rotting of tissue ceases and the infected tissue is restricted and demarcated from healthy tissues. Defense-related phenolic compounds are produced at the boundary between infected and healthy tissues. Our previous study showed that the induced production of chitinases during defense is a generalized wound response. To further investigate the plant defense, we developed a subtractive, disease response-specific cDNA library from infected roots using mRNA derived from disease-free roots as driver for the substraction. 768 clones were recovered after two rounds of substraction via the biotin-avidin method. The library then was screened for chitinase-related sequences using a probe developed from an Arabidopsis acidic endochitinase gene (M34107. Using RT-PCR, the cDNAs isolated are currently being used to investigate pathogen-induced chitinase expression at the transcriptional level. Additionally, this library will be used as a source of defense response specific, expressed sequence tags.