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ARS Home » Midwest Area » St. Paul, Minnesota » Plant Science Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #403785
Research Project: Genetic Improvement and Cropping Systems of Alfalfa for Livestock Utilization, Environmental Protection and Soil Health

Location: Plant Science Research

Title: Functional analysis of differentially expressed genes in alfalfa (Medicago sativa) inoculated with Aphanomyces euteiches race 1 and race 2

Author
item ALEXANDER, JAY - Dakota State University
item SATHOFF, ANDREW - Dakota State University
item Samac, Deborah - Debby

Submitted to: American Phytopathological Society
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/12/2023
Publication Date: 8/16/2023
Citation: Alexander, J., Sathoff, A., Samac, D.A. 2023. Functional analysis of differentially expressed genes in alfalfa (Medicago sativa) inoculated with Aphanomyces euteiches race 1 and race 2. Plant Health 2023. August 12-16, 2023. Denver, Colorado.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Aphanomyces root rot caused by Aphanomyces euteiches is one of the most destructive diseases of alfalfa. Resistant cultivars have been developed that exhibit race-specific resistance. Transcript profiling was done to gain a better understanding of the compatible and incompatible interactions. Three-day-old seedlings of the check cultivars WAPH-1 (resistant to race 1 strains) and WAPH-5 (resistant to race 1 and race 2 strains) were inoculated with MF-1 (race 1) and MER-4 (race 2) and RNA extracted 24 h post-inoculation, with three biological replicates. RNAseq using an Illumina HiSeq 2500 to obtain 125 bp paired-end reads was carried out with >10.5 million reads/sample. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified after sequence trimming and quality control. The incompatible interaction in WAPH-1 and WAPH-5 to MF-1 contained the most unique up-regulated DEGs, 637 and 217, respectively. The incompatible response of WAPH-5 to MF-1 and MER-4 appear to be similar with 258 common up-regulated DEGs and only 53 unique DEGs in response to MER-4. Functional annotation of the DEGs was performed using the Blast2GO tool. The DEGs of the incompatible interactions were primarily placed into four categories in the Gene Ontology term Biological Processes: ‘defense response,’ ‘cellular response to stimulus,’ ‘signal transduction,’ and ‘protein phosphorylation’. These results increase understanding of the A. euteiches and alfalfa molecular interaction for development of cultivars with increased resistant to Aphanomyces root rot.