Construction of artificial microRNA expression vectors for inhibition of Minc16281 gene in root-knot nematode Meloidogyne incognita
Effectors have been identified to play a very important role in the parasitism of plant-parasitic nematode. To cope with this type of pathogen, many approaches of silencing genes encoding for effectors have been studied and promise to be an effective tool to create plant varieties resistant to plant-parasitic nematodes. In this study, the Minc16281 gene encoding a pioneer effector with unknown function was determined and cloned from a Meloidogyne incognita population isolated from soybean field (ID: MH315945.1). The nucleotide sequence of this gene showed 97% identity to its homolog in GenBank (ID: JK287445.1) used as the control strain in our research. To generate host-induced gene silencing constructs which can potentially silence the expression of Minc16281 gene, two artificial microRNAs were synthesized based on the miR319a structure of Arabidopsis thaliana and inserted into an expression vector in soybean. These microRNAs can be introduced into soybean to investigate the function of Minc16281 on parasitism of root-knot nematode.