Genome-Wide Identification and Expression Analysis of Rosa roxburghii Autophagy-Related Genes in Response to Top-Rot Disease

Kaisha Luo; Jiaohong Li; Min Lu; Huaming An; Xiaomao Wu

doi:10.3390/biom13030556

Genome-Wide Identification and Expression Analysis of Rosa roxburghii Autophagy-Related Genes in Response to Top-Rot Disease

Biomolecules. 2023 Mar 17;13(3):556. doi: 10.3390/biom13030556.

Authors

Kaisha Luo¹, Jiaohong Li², Min Lu¹, Huaming An¹, Xiaomao Wu^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Guizhou Engineering Research Center for Fruit Crops, College of Agriculture, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China.
² Institute of Crop Protection, College of Agriculture, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China.
³ The Provincial Key Laboratory for Agricultural Pest Management of Mountainous Region, Guiyang 550025, China.

Abstract

Autophagy is a highly conserved process in eukaryotes that degrades and recycles damaged cells in plants and is involved in plant growth, development, senescence, and resistance to external stress. Top-rot disease (TRD) in Rosa roxburghii fruits caused by Colletotrichum fructicola often leads to huge yield losses. However, little information is available about the autophagy underlying the defense response to TRD. Here, we identified a total of 40 R. roxburghii autophagy-related genes (RrATGs), which were highly homologous to Arabidopsis thaliana ATGs. Transcriptomic data show that RrATGs were involved in the development and ripening processes of R. roxburghii fruits. Gene expression patterns in fruits with different degrees of TRD occurrence suggest that several members of the RrATGs family responded to TRD, of which RrATG18e was significantly up-regulated at the initial infection stage of C. fructicola. Furthermore, exogenous calcium (Ca²⁺) significantly promoted the mRNA accumulation of RrATG18e and fruit resistance to TRD, suggesting that this gene might be involved in the calcium-mediated TRD defense response. This study provided a better understanding of R. roxburghii autophagy-related genes and their potential roles in disease resistance.

Keywords: Colletotrichum fructicola; Rosa roxburghii; autophagy; calcium; top rot.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Arabidopsis* / genetics
Autophagy / genetics
Calcium / metabolism
Fruit / metabolism
Gene Expression Profiling
Rosa* / genetics

Substances

Calcium

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Joint Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Karst Science Research Center of Guizhou Province (No. U1812401), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 32160656), the Science-Technology Support Program of Guizhou Province [grant no. (2020)1Y134, (2021) YB243], the “Hundred” Level Talent Foundation of Guizhou Province (grant no. GCC [2022]023-1), and the Cultivation Program of Guizhou University (grant no. [2019]09].