Tilletia laevis Kühn and Tilletia controversa Kühn reprogrammed the
development of wheat anther
Abstract
Tilletia laevis cause common bunt and Tilletia controversa
cause dwarf bunt of wheat. Both pathogens can cause fungus galls which
replace with wheat grains and lead to the total loss of wheat yields. To
better understand disease progression, confocal microscopy was used to
construct the timeline of cell development of healthy wheat anthers, and
which was approved by analyzing the expression level of some
developmental and program cell death genes. Based on comparing with
normal healthy anthers, tapetum cells should be disappeared at 1300 µm,
but in T. laevis infected anthers, tapetum cells was visible in
2100 µm of T. controversa infected anthers. For the anthers
infected by T. laevis and T. controversa, cell size and
counts showed significant difference with normal anther cells.
Additionally, for the anthers of five developmental stages,
transcriptome profile and infected five developmental stages were also
analyzed. Furthermore, we established virus-induced gene silencing
(VIGS) for wheat bunt pathogens. Based on RNA-Seq data, TaEC in
wheat anther were validated to contribute to the resistance to both bunt
pathogens. This study firstly constructed the development timeline of
wheat anthers and firstly constructed VIGS system to explore the
interaction of both bunt pathogens with wheat anther development.