Abstract
Background: Late blight seriously threatens potato cultivation worldwide. The severe and widespread damage caused by the fungal pathogen can lead to drastic decreases in potato yield. Although grafting technology has been widely used to improve crop resistance, the effects of grafting on potato late blight resistance as well as the associated molecular mechanisms remain unclear. Therefore, we performed RNA transcriptome sequencing analysis and the late blight resistance testing of the scion when the potato late blight-resistant variety Qingshu 9 and the susceptible variety Favorita were used as the rootstock and scion, respectively, and vice versa. The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of the rootstock on scion disease resistance and to clarify the related molecular mechanisms.Results: A Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analysis revealed that the expression levels of genes related to plant–pathogen interactions, plant mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways, and plant hormone signal transduction pathways were significantly up-regulated in the scion when Qingshu 9 was used as the rootstock. These genes included late blight response genes encoding calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPKs), chitin elicitor receptor kinases (CERKs), LRR receptor serine/threonine protein kinases (LRR-LRKs), NPR family proteins in the salicylic acid synthesis pathway, and MAPKs. When Favorita was used as the rootstock, the expression levels of the late blight response genes were not up-regulated in the Qingshu 9 scion, but the expression levels of the genes related to proline metabolism, fatty acid chain elongation, and diterpenoid biosynthesis pathways were down-regulated. Resistance results showed that self-grafting of the susceptible variety and grafting with the resistant variety as the rootstock increased the resistance of the susceptible scion to late blight. However, the resistance was stronger after grafting with the resistant variety as the rootstock. Using the susceptible variety as the rootstock decreased the late blight resistance of the resistant scion.Conclusions: Our results showed that changes to the expression of disease resistance genes in the scion after grafting are associated with late blight resistance. The results provide the basis for exploring the molecular mechanism underlying the effects of rootstocks on scion disease resistance.
Silencing of six susceptibility genes results in potato late blight resistance