3.17 Knockdown of TaEC reduces wheat resistant toT. controversa and T. laevis
The results showed that BSMV:TaEC inoculated leaves has strip like chlorosis symptoms, while BSMV:γ inoculated leaves have yellowing spots by virus infection at 13 dpi (Figure 10A-ab).And then, at 30 dpi, more obvious withering and necrosis symptoms were appeared after BSMV:TaEC inoculation plants than BSMV:γ inoculation (Figure 10A-cd). The silencing BSMV:γ (left) and BSMV:TaEC (right) after T. controversa and T. laevis inoculation, kernels in spike of BSMV:TaEC silenced plants showed heavier symptoms than BSMV:γ (Figure 6B-ef).Combined the disease index. data, the results showed that TaEC contribute to the disease resistance of both pathogens. There is no disease symptoms on kernels after BSMV:γ (left) and BSMV:TaEC (right) spikes when spikes are not inoculated with T. controversa or T. laevis (Figure 10B-g). Lateral and longitudinal arrangements of kernels showed that kernels are healthy after only silencing the genes, which not inoculated with T. controversa and T. laevis (Figure 10C), respectively. We performed qRT-PCR to define the TaEC transcript levels in the kernels inoculated with BSMV:γ and BSMV:TaEC at (0, 10, 15, 22, 35 and 42d) intervals after T. controversa or T. laevisinfection. The results showed that the expression of BSMV:TaEC was significantly lower than that of BSMV:γ at 0 dpi, indicating that the TaEC gene was successfully silenced (Figure 10D, E). After inoculation with T. controversa , the expression of TaEC was extremely significantly lower than that of BSMV:γ at 10 dpi, and increased at 15 dpi, but still significantly lower than that of BSMV:γ (Figure 10D). There was no significant difference in the expression of BSMV:TaEC and BSMV:γ TaEC genes after 22dpi. Similarly, the expression of TaEC transcript was significantly decreased at 10 dpi and 15 dpi after inoculation with T. laevis , which was showed lower expression level than that of BSMV:γ(Figure 10E). The grains length in BSMV:TaEC was 83.23 ± 3.62 mm, while in BSMV:γ was 88.29 ± 3.42 mm. Similarly, grain width in BSMV:TaEC was 81.18 ± 3.51 mm, while in BSMV:γ was 80.81 ± 2.8 mm.