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Differences in immunity between pathogen-resistant and -susceptible yam cultivars reveal insights into disease prevention underlying ethylene supplementation

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Abstract

Leaf necrosis induced by fungal pathogens is one of the most devastating diseases of yam. The objectives of this study were to examine the production of defensive phytohormones and perform a comparative transcriptome analysis between two yam cultivars with different resistance levels against Botrytis cinerea inoculation. After inoculation with B. cinerea, the endogenous ethylene level was found to have accumulated to a higher level in the MH1 resistant cultivar. Meanwhile, expression profiles identified differential defense regulation of ethylene pathway in MH1 (versus susceptible cv. MH3) in response to B. cinerea. A number of ethylene-synthesis and -responsive genes were expressed at higher levels in MH1 than in MH3 after inoculation. Furthermore, ethylene supplementation in MH3 plants by ethephon spraying indeed enhanced the resistance against B. cinerea and Colletotrichum alatae, and elevated the expression of DaEIN2 and DaERF96. Our work improves understanding of defense mechanism and highlights the function of ethylene potentially utilized for yam protection against diseases.

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Abbreviations

B. cinerea :

Botrytis cinerea

Chl:

Chlorophyll

EIL:

Ethylene-insensitive 3 like

ERF:

Ethylene-responsive transcription factor

ET:

Ethylene

JA:

Jasmonic acid

MH:

Minghuai

RPKM:

Reads per kilobase per million mapped reads

SA:

Salicylic acid

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Fujian Provincial Department of Science and Technology, China (Grants 2018N0069 and 2019N0045). We really appreciate to Dr. D. Chamberlin for English polishing, Dr. C.P. Cheng for providing B. cinerea, and Y. Cao for providing C. alatae.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Dryland Crops, Sanming Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Sanming, 365000, Fujian, China

    Shumei Hua, Zhihua Chen, Lihong Li, Yangwen Zhang, Jieyu Yang & Shi-Peng Chen

  2. Department of Horticulture and Biotechnology, Chinese Culture University, Taipei, 11114, Taiwan

    Kuan-Hung Lin

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  1. Shumei Hua
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  7. Shi-Peng Chen
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by SH, ZC, LL, YZ, JY, and S-PC. The first draft of the manuscript was written by K-HL and S-PC and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shi-Peng Chen.

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Hua, S., Chen, Z., Li, L. et al. Differences in immunity between pathogen-resistant and -susceptible yam cultivars reveal insights into disease prevention underlying ethylene supplementation. J. Plant Biochem. Biotechnol. 30, 254–264 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13562-020-00582-9

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