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.