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Cytological and molecular analysis of nonhost resistance in rice to wheat powdery mildew and leaf rust pathogens

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Abstract

Cereal powdery mildews caused by Blumeria graminis and cereal rusts caused by Puccinia spp. are constant disease threats that limit the production of almost all important cereal crops. Rice is an intensively grown agricultural cereal that is atypical because of its immunity to all powdery mildew and rust fungi. We analyzed the nonhost interactions between rice and the wheat powdery mildew fungus B. graminis f. sp. tritici (Bgt) and the wheat leaf rust fungus Puccinia triticina (Ptr) to identify the basis of nonhost resistance (NHR) in rice against cereal powdery mildew and rust fungi at cytological and molecular levels. No visible symptoms were observed on rice leaves inoculated with Bgt or Ptr. Microscopic observations showed that both pathogens exhibited aberrant differentiation and significantly reduced penetration frequencies on rice compared to wheat. The development of Bgt and Ptr was also completely arrested at early infection stages in cases of successful penetration into rice leaves. Attempted infection of rice by Bgt and Ptr induced similar defense responses, including callose deposition, accumulation of reactive oxygen species, and hypersensitive response in rice epidermal and mesophyll cells, respectively. Furthermore, a set of defense-related genes were upregulated in rice against Bgt and Ptr infection. Rice is an excellent monocot model for genetic and molecular studies. Therefore, our results demonstrate that rice is a useful model to study the mechanisms of NHR to cereal powdery mildew and rust fungi, which provides useful information for the development of novel and durable strategies to control these important pathogens.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2013CB127700), the Modern Agro-industry Technology Research System in China (No. CARS-3-1-11), and the 111 Project from the Ministry of Education of China (No. B07049).

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology for Arid Areas and College of Plant Protection, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, 712100, People’s Republic of China

    Yulin Cheng, Juanni Yao, Lili Huang & Zhensheng Kang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology for Arid Areas and College of Life Sciences, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, 712100, People’s Republic of China

    Hongchang Zhang

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  1. Yulin Cheng
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  2. Juanni Yao
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  3. Hongchang Zhang
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Correspondence to Zhensheng Kang.

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Cheng, Y., Yao, J., Zhang, H. et al. Cytological and molecular analysis of nonhost resistance in rice to wheat powdery mildew and leaf rust pathogens. Protoplasma 252, 1167–1179 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-014-0750-9

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