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ARS Home » Plains Area » Fargo, North Dakota » Edward T. Schafer Agricultural Research Center » Cereal Crops Improvement Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #421144
Research Project: Improvement of Disease and Pest Resistance in Barley, Durum, Oat, and Wheat Using Genetics and Genomics

Location: Cereal Crops Improvement Research

Title: Insights into the resistance mechanisms of Aegilops umbellulata against leaf rust and bacterial leaf streak using transcriptomics

Author
item SINGH, JATINDER - North Dakota State University
item GUDI, SANTOSH - North Dakota State University
item SHI, GONGJUN - North Dakota State University
item LIU, ZHAOHUI - North Dakota State University
item Gupta, Rajeev
item UPINDER, GILL - North Dakota State University

Submitted to: Plant and Animal Genome Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/8/2024
Publication Date: 1/10/2025
Citation: Singh, J., Gudi, S., Shi, G., Liu, Z., Gupta, R., Upinder, G. 2025. Insights into the resistance mechanisms of Aegilops umbellulata against leaf rust and bacterial leaf streak using transcriptomics. Plant and Animal Genome Conference. Poster No. PO0420.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Bacterial leaf streak (BLS) and leaf rust are two major wheat diseases that seriously threaten wheat production. We have recently identified novel resistance to both diseases in a wheat wild relative, Aegilops umbellulata. NDRL21-044 exhibited resistance to leaf rust but susceptibility to bacterial leaf streak (BLS), and NDRL21-065 exhibited susceptibility to leaf rust and resistance to BLS. To understand the resistance mechanisms against these diseases, we performed two independent transcriptomics experiments. The BLS experiment produced 103 Gb of parried-end (PE) RNAseq data from 24 samples and the leaf rust experiment produced 168 Gb of PE data from 42 samples. For BLS, NDRL21-065 exhibited a spike in differentially expressed genes (DEGs) very early in the infection process at 1 day after infection (DAI), whereas NDRL21-044 exhibited a similar spike 3 DAI. At 1 DAI, there was a 3.46-fold increase in DEGs in the resistant accession compared to the susceptible accession. The functional analysis revealed that the defense-related pathways got upregulated in the resistant accession early during the infection compared to the susceptible accession. In the leaf rust transcriptomics experiment, we compared resistant (NDRL21-044) with susceptible (NDRL21-065) accession. At 6, 24, and 72 hours, ~15000 DEGs were reported and about 12000 DEGs were common in treated and mock samples. Further, we found two NLRs differentially expressed in resistant and susceptible accessions. These genes will be characterized, and these accessions can be used to introgress novel disease resistance traits into cultivated wheat.