Transcriptomic analysis of Paulownia infected by Paulownia witches'-broom Phytoplasma

PLoS One. 2013 Oct 10;8(10):e77217. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0077217. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

Phytoplasmas are plant pathogenic bacteria that have no cell wall and are responsible for major crop losses throughout the world. Phytoplasma-infected plants show a variety of symptoms and the mechanisms they use to physiologically alter the host plants are of considerable interest, but poorly understood. In this study we undertook a detailed analysis of Paulownia infected by Paulownia witches'-broom (PaWB) Phytoplasma using high-throughput mRNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) and digital gene expression (DGE). RNA-Seq analysis identified 74,831 unigenes, which were subsequently used as reference sequences for DGE analysis of diseased and healthy Paulownia in field grown and tissue cultured plants. Our study revealed that dramatic changes occurred in the gene expression profile of Paulownia after PaWB Phytoplasma infection. Genes encoding key enzymes in cytokinin biosynthesis, such as isopentenyl diphosphate isomerase and isopentenyltransferase, were significantly induced in the infected Paulownia. Genes involved in cell wall biosynthesis and degradation were largely up-regulated and genes related to photosynthesis were down-regulated after PaWB Phytoplasma infection. Our systematic analysis provides comprehensive transcriptomic data about plants infected by Phytoplasma. This information will help further our understanding of the detailed interaction mechanisms between plants and Phytoplasma.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Gene Expression Profiling*
  • Genomics
  • Magnoliopsida / genetics*
  • Magnoliopsida / microbiology*
  • Molecular Sequence Annotation
  • Phytoplasma / physiology*
  • Plant Diseases / microbiology*
  • Sequence Analysis, RNA

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Science and technology support program (2012BAK11B02). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.