Red rot caused by Colletotrichum falcatum poses a serious threat to sugarcane cultivation in many tropical and sub-tropical countries. Deciphering the molecular network of major defense-signaling pathways in sugarcane cultivars with varying red rot resistance is essential to elucidate the phenomenon of defense priming exerted by resistance inducers. Therefore, in this study, expression pattern of transcripts coding for major defense-signaling pathway regulatory genes was profiled during compatible and incompatible interactions and in response to defense priming using qRT-PCR. Candidate genes that were profiled are involved in or related to hypersensitive response and reactive oxygen species production (HR/ROS), salicylic acid (SA), and jasmonic acid/ethylene (JA/ET) pathways. For compatible and incompatible interactions, susceptible (CoC 671), field tolerant (Co 86032) and resistant (Co 93009) sugarcane cultivars were used, whereas for defense priming, benzothiadiazole (BTH) and the pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) of C. falcatum viz., CfEPL1 (eliciting plant response-like) and CfPDIP1 (plant defense inducing protein) were used in CoC 671 cultivar. Results indicated that the master regulator of defense pathways, nonexpressor of pathogenesis-related genes 1 (NPR1) was highly upregulated in incompatible interactions (in both Co 86032 and Co 93009) than the compatible interaction along with SA pathway-associated genes. Similarly, in response to defense priming with BTH, CfEPL1 and CfPDIP1, only the SA pathway-associated genes showed considerable upregulation at 0 h post inoculation (hpi) and other intermittent time points. Overall, this study showed that SA-mediated defense pathway is the most predominant pathway reprogrammed during priming with BTH, CfEPL1 and CfPDIP1 and substantiated the earlier findings that these agents indeed induce systemic resistance against red rot of sugarcane.
Keywords: CfEPL1; CfPDIP1; Colletotrichum falcatum; Defense-related genes; Priming; Sugarcane.