Affiliations: [a] College of Horticulture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China
| [b] Department of Plant Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA
Correspondence:
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Corresponding authors: Yan Zhong and Zong-Ming Cheng, College of Horticulture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China. Tel./Fax: +86 25 84396055; E-mails: yzhong@njau.edu.cn (Y. Zhong); zmc@njau.edu.cn (Z.-M. Cheng).
Note: [1] The raw data were retrieved from the European Nucleotide Archive by accession number PRJEB4896.
Abstract: BACKGROUND:The strawberry is one of the most intensively grown fruits worldwide but faces challenges by several severe diseases, such as powdery mildew (PM) caused by Podosphaera aphanis. OBJECTIVE:To understand the disease response process and identify critical defense-related genes which may be utilized for improving disease resistance in the strawberry. METHODS:We analyzed differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of the RNA-seq data1 of two F. vesca accessions, Hawaii 4 (HW) and Yellow Wonder 5AF7 (YW), infected by PM and analyzed the differentially expressed genes (DEGs). RESULTS:There were 2310 and 1681 DEGs identified in HW and YW, respectively. The less-susceptible HW and the susceptible YW shared 1342 DEGs. More DEGs and higher expression levels of those DEGs were detected in HW than in YW. The DEGs contained 935 and 728 different domains in HW and YW, respectively, and many high-frequency domains were associated with response to abiotic/biotic stimuli. The DEGs have 16 expression profiles in each accession, and four profiles were significantly enriched in the “Plant-pathogen interaction” pathway, having the same degree of confidence in the co-expression network in each accession. CONCLUSIONS:These findings provide insight into the global response to a challenging disease, powdery mildew, and contribute to the understanding of PM resistance which will facilitate the molecular breeding of strawberries.
