Coronatine-Based Gene Expression Changes Impart Partial Resistance to Fall Armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) in Seedling Maize

Yuxuan Lou; Xiaoxiao Jin; Zhiguo Jia; Yuqi Sun; Yiming Xu; Zihan Liu; Shuqian Tan; Fei Yi; Liusheng Duan

doi:10.3390/genes14030735

Coronatine-Based Gene Expression Changes Impart Partial Resistance to Fall Armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) in Seedling Maize

Genes (Basel). 2023 Mar 16;14(3):735. doi: 10.3390/genes14030735.

Authors

Yuxuan Lou¹, Xiaoxiao Jin¹, Zhiguo Jia¹, Yuqi Sun¹, Yiming Xu¹, Zihan Liu¹, Shuqian Tan², Fei Yi¹, Liusheng Duan^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Engineering Research Center of Plant Growth Regulator, Ministry of Education & College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China.
² MOA Key Lab of Pest Monitoring and Green Management, Department of Entomology, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China.
³ College of Plant Science and Technology, Beijing University of Agriculture, Beijing 100193, China.

Abstract

In recent years, Spodoptera frugiperda (S. frugiperda, Smith) has invaded China, seriously threatening maize production. To explore an effective method to curb the further expansion of the harm of the S. frugiperda, this experiment used maize seedlings of the Zhengdan 958 three-leaf stage (V3) of maize as the material to study the effect of coronatine (COR) on the ability of maize to resist insects (S. frugiperda) at the seedling stage. The results showed that when maize was sprayed with 0.05 μM COR, the newly incubated larvae of S. frugiperda had the least leaf feeding. It was found that 0.05 μM COR significantly increased the contents of abscisic acid (ABA) and jasmonate (JA) in maize leaves through the determination of hormone content. Moreover, transcriptome sequencing revealed that the expression of six genes (ZmBX1, ZmBX2, ZmBX3, ZmBX4, ZmBX5 and ZmBX6), which are associated with the synthesis of benzoxazinoid, were upregulated. Nine genes (ZmZIM3, ZmZIM4, ZmZIM10, ZmZIM13, ZmZIM18, ZmZIM23, ZmZIM27, ZmZIM28 and ZmZIM38) of JA-Zim Domain (JAZ) protein in the JA signal pathway, and seven genes (ZmPRH19, ZmPRH18, Zm00001d024732, Zm00001d034109, Zm00001d026269, Zm00001d028574 and Zm00001d013220) of ABA downstream response protein Group A Type 2C Protein Phosphatase (PP2C) were downregulated. These results demonstrated that COR could induce anti-insect factors and significantly improve insect resistance in seedling maize, which laid a theoretical foundation for further study of the mechanism of COR improving insect resistance in seedling maize, and provided data references for the use of COR as an environmentally friendly pest control method.

Keywords: RNA-seq; Spodoptera frugiperda; coronatine; insect resistance mechanism; maize.

Publication types

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

MeSH terms

Animals
Gene Expression
Seedlings* / genetics
Spodoptera / genetics
Zea mays* / genetics

Substances

coronatine

Grants and funding

This work, including the design of the study, data collection, analysis and interpretation and manuscript writing, was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (32001558 to F.Y.).