Skip to main content
Advertisement
Browse Subject Areas
?

Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field.

For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click here.

  • Loading metrics

Sugarcane transcriptome analysis in response to infection caused by Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae

  • Ailton B. Santa Brigida ,

    Contributed equally to this work with: Ailton B. Santa Brigida, Cristian A. Rojas

    Affiliation Laboratório de Biologia Molecular de Plantas, Instituto de Bioquímica Médica Leopoldo de Meis, Centro de Ciências da Saúde, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

  • Cristian A. Rojas ,

    Contributed equally to this work with: Ailton B. Santa Brigida, Cristian A. Rojas

    Affiliation Instituto Latino-Americano de Ciências da Vida e da Natureza, Universidade Federal da Integração Latino-Americana, Foz do Iguaçu, Paraná, Brasil

  • Clícia Grativol,

    Affiliation Laboratório de Química e Função de Proteínas e Peptídeos, Centro de Biociências e Biotecnologia, Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro, Campos dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

  • Elvismary M. de Armas,

    Affiliation Departamento de Informática, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

  • Júlio O. P. Entenza,

    Affiliation Departamento de Informática, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

  • Flávia Thiebaut,

    Affiliation Laboratório de Biologia Molecular de Plantas, Instituto de Bioquímica Médica Leopoldo de Meis, Centro de Ciências da Saúde, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

  • Marcelo de F. Lima,

    Affiliation Departamento de Química, Instituto de Ciências Exatas, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

  • Laurent Farrinelli,

    Affiliation Fasteris SA, 1228-Plan-les-Ouates, Genève, Switzerland

  • Adriana S. Hemerly,

    Affiliation Laboratório de Biologia Molecular de Plantas, Instituto de Bioquímica Médica Leopoldo de Meis, Centro de Ciências da Saúde, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

  • Sérgio Lifschitz,

    Affiliation Departamento de Informática, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

  • Paulo C. G. Ferreira

    paulof@bioqmed.ufrj.br

    Affiliation Laboratório de Biologia Molecular de Plantas, Instituto de Bioquímica Médica Leopoldo de Meis, Centro de Ciências da Saúde, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Abstract

Sugarcane is an important tropical crop mainly cultivated to produce ethanol and sugar. Crop productivity is negatively affected by Acidovorax avenae subsp avenae (Aaa), which causes the red stripe disease. Little is known about the molecular mechanisms triggered in response to the infection. We have investigated the molecular mechanism activated in sugarcane using a RNA-seq approach. We have produced a de novo transcriptome assembly (TR7) from sugarcane RNA-seq libraries submitted to drought and infection with Aaa. Together, these libraries present 247 million of raw reads and resulted in 168,767 reference transcripts. Mapping in TR7 of reads obtained from infected libraries, revealed 798 differentially expressed transcripts, of which 723 were annotated, corresponding to 467 genes. GO and KEGG enrichment analysis showed that several metabolic pathways, such as code for proteins response to stress, metabolism of carbohydrates, processes of transcription and translation of proteins, amino acid metabolism and biosynthesis of secondary metabolites were significantly regulated in sugarcane. Differential analysis revealed that genes in the biosynthetic pathways of ET and JA PRRs, oxidative burst genes, NBS-LRR genes, cell wall fortification genes, SAR induced genes and pathogenesis-related genes (PR) were upregulated. In addition, 20 genes were validated by RT-qPCR. Together, these data contribute to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms triggered by the Aaa in sugarcane and opens the opportunity for the development of molecular markers associated with disease tolerance in breeding programs.

Introduction

Sugarcane (Saccharum sp.) is an economic important crop mainly used for the production of ethanol and sugar, but also of cachaça (sugarcane spirit), molasses and animal feed [1]. The modern commercial cultivars are hybrids derived from crosses of the domesticated S. officinarum clones, natural hybrids of S. sinense and S. barberi, and S. spontaneum. These crosses resulted in highly polyploid and aneuploid species, hindering molecular characterization [24].

Pathogens such as viruses, bacteria and fungi are major restraints to sugarcane productivity. Among these, the bacterium Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae (Aaa), the causal agent of the red stripe disease, results significant yield losses [1,5,6]. For instance, in Argentina the red stripe disease of sugarcane affects 30% of the milling stems and consequently the juice quality [7]. In addition, this disease has similar symptomatology to “false red stripe” caused by a Xanthomonas sp., described firstly in Brazil [8]. The main symptom of the disease is the appearance of thin, long streaks on leaves that will turn into red-brown color stripes. With disease progression, the streaks reach the apical meristem that moistens and then putrefies. Ultimately, if they eventually reach the stem, it will cause cracks that release an unpleasant odor [9]. The gram-negative bacterium Aaa, formerly known as Pseudomonas avenae [10], is responsible for many diseases in economically important monocot plants. Despite the importance of the disease, little is known about the elicited molecular defense mechanisms in sugarcane.

The complete genome of Aaa (strain RS-1 which infects rice) reveals many genes involved in pathogenicity [11]. Subsequently, it was shown that mutations in the pilP gene, which encodes one of the proteins that form the Type IV (pili hair-like appendages involved in several bacterial activities), affects the ability to initiate the disease in rice [12]. Genome wide in silico comparative analysis identified Types I, II, III, and IV secretion systems in Aaa (strain RS-1) [13]. Recent studies of RNA-seq conducted by our group showed that miR408 was downregulated in plants infected with Aaa and the Puccinia kuehnii pathogenic fungus. This miRNA targets genes involved in copper homeostasis and/or lignification and browning, being compromised in response to these pathogens (Thiebaut et al. submitted).

Plants have an array of defense mechanisms against invading pathogens. The primary mechanisms are signals perceived by receptors present in the membrane of cells that act as a surveillance system recognizing the pathogen and activating the plant innate immune system [14,15]. Endogenous and exogenous signals provided by pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), virulence factors and secreted proteins are recognized directly or indirectly by a group of receptors called pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), which are present in the plasma membrane. PRR may be either receptor-like kinase (RLK) or receptor-like protein (RLP) families. RLK and RLP have similar structural organization, but RLP lacks the cytosolic signaling kinase domain [15].

The stimulated PRRs trigger plant defense responses in a mechanism known as PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI), constituting the first level of pathogen perception [15]. A second level of perception involves nucleotide-binding (NB)-LRR intracellular receptors. These recognize molecules of plant pathogen virulence, the effectors, and activate the effector-triggered immunity (ETI). However, pathogens have developed tools that block or suppress defense responses activated by these receptors in the plasma membrane and in the cytoplasm as well [15].

Sugars are also involved in many signaling pathways, contributing to immune responses against pathogens [16,17]. They activate pathogenesis-related genes, increasing defense responses [18,19]. Furthermore, sucrose stimulates the accumulation of anthocyanins and other secondary metabolites, increasing the abundance of plant protection agents [20]. Using mRNAseq, Martinelli and co-workers have shown the Huanglongbing (HLB) disease caused by the bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (Calas) dramatically affects sugar and starch metabolism in young and mature leaves and fruits of sweet orange [21].

The molecular mechanisms triggered in sugarcane in response to infection with Aaa are poorly understood. Here, we have produced a de novo transcriptome assembly from sugarcane RNA-seq libraries submitted to drought and infected with Aaa. Gene Ontology (GO) and KEGG enrichment analysis showed that several metabolic pathways, such as (i) code for proteins response to stress, (ii) metabolism of carbohydrates, (iii) processes of transcription and translation of proteins, (iv) amino acid metabolism and (v) biosynthesis of secondary metabolites were significantly regulated in sugarcane in response to Aaa. Differential analysis revealed that genes in the biosynthetic pathways of ET (Ethylene) e JA (Jasmonic Acid), PRRs, oxidative burst genes, NBS-LRR genes, cell wall fortification genes, systemic acquired resistance (SAR) induction genes and pathogenesis-related genes (PR) were upregulated in sugarcane during infection by Aaa. Finally, some genes were validated in both replicates. Together, these data contribute to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms triggered by the Aaa pathogenic bacteria in sugarcane plantlets.

Materials and Methods

Pathogen infection assay

In vitro-grown sugarcane plantlets (Saccharum spp. genotype SP70-1143) were used to investigate pathogenic infection. Briefly, the plantlets were rooted on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with sucrose (2%), citric acid (150mg/L), kinetin (0.1mg/L) and IBA (0.2 mg/L), under 110 mE m-2 s-luminosity and 12 h photoperiod at 28°C. Aaa was obtained from the Culture Collection of the Instituto Biológico. The bacterium was grown in NA medium (beef extract 3 g/l, Peptone 5 g/l NaCl 5 g/L) at 28°C. After rooting, plants were divided into two parts with a scalpel for pathogenic assay. One half had their root system immersed in an Aaa suspension (106 CFU ml-1) for 5 minutes and, the other half, used as control, was immersed in distilled water. After the immersions, two washes were made. Two biological replicas (named rep 1 and rep 2) of mock and infected plants were carried out. Infected and mock plants were transferred to fresh MS medium. After 7 days, whole plants were collected and immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen for RNA extraction.

Total RNA extraction and mRNA-sequencing

Total RNA from whole plants of sugarcane was isolated using Trizol (Invitrogen, CA, USA), as recommended by the manufacturer. The quantification of extracted RNA was accessed using a Thermo Scientific NanoDrop 2000c Spectrophotometer and its quality was analyzed by electrophoresis on 1.5% agarose gel. A total of 10 μg of each sample was sent out to Fasteris Life Sciences SA (Plan-les-Ouates, Switzerland) for construction of mRNA-seq libraries following the TruSeq RNA Sample Prep Kit. The multiplex sequencing reaction was performed on the Illumina GAII machine using the single-end 76 cycle protocol.

De novo transcriptome assembly and read mapping

In order to generate a de novo transcriptome assembly (from now on called Transcriptome of Reference 7-TR7), we have assembled sugarcane RNA libraries (genotype SP70-1143 from drought (NCBI accession SRP043291) and Aaa treatments (NCBI accession SRP041671)) obtained from Illumina Sequencer using algorithms implemented at Velvet [22] and Oases [23] programs. For all experiments, we have considered a 92GB RAM Linux-based computer with an Ubuntu distribution. We have used in the assembly of TR7 18 libraries with four different read-lengths: 32bp, 72bp, 76bp and 100bp. TR does not contain mate-pair reads, and it has only one pair of libraries with paired-end reads.

To process selected libraries for TR7 assembling, we have used the FASTX-Toolkit (http://hannonlab.cshl.edu/fastx_toolkit/contact.html) to apply a quality filter to all sequences, selecting the 90 percent of base pairs with 20 as a minimum quality score value. We have also filtered and matched the paired-end reads. After the quality filter, we have removed exact duplicate genome sequences from the dataset using the PRINSEQ tool [24].

Next, we applied the corresponding parameters for the execution of Velvet aiming at the generation of a de Bruijn graph [22], in order to obtain the contigs. Finally, we ran Oases to do the scaffolding and get the final transcripts.

Differential expression analysis

In order to analyze gene differential expression using the transcripts present in TR7, some programs included in the Trinity software package were used [25,26]. To align reads and estimate abundance we have used a method based in RSEM [27]. The chosen alignment method was bowtie2 [28]. To identify differential expressed genes (DEGs), we have generated expression values matrix using the RSEM method. The values were normalized as read per million per kilo base (RPKM) by dividing the raw number of reads multiplied by 1 billion for the transcript length multiplied by total number of mapped reads on each library [29].

The differential expression of transcripts was tested by their significance in all 2x2 combinations of four libraries using Fisher exact test with a p-value cutoff ≤ 0.01 available at the online version of IDEG6 [30]. The Log2 transformation counts of Fold change ratio values was used to compare transcripts expression between infected and control samples.

Pearson's Correlation Coefficient analysis was also performed to compare Log2 of RPKM in rep 1 relative to Log2 of RPKM in rep 2 in control and infected plants.

Functional annotation

We have used the TRAPID (Rapid Analysis of Transcriptome Data platform [31] to assign annotations and GO terms to the predicted genes of sugarcane. This platform was also used to detect open reading frames (ORFs) and frameshift corrections at each transcript. TR7, was loaded to the TRAPID database, which uses the PLAZA 2.5 database [32], to assign functions based on sequence similarity. The closest model plant that has well annotated sequence used for validation was Sorghum, but other grasses were used as well.

When the length of a transcript was not remarkably different than the average protein length of the gene family it was assigned to, it received the label ‘‘Quasi Full Length” as meta-annotation. When a transcript was assigned as ‘‘Quasi Full Length”, and its associated ORF had both a start and stop codon, the meta-annotation was changed to ‘‘Full Length”. To add gene families and functional annotations to each transcript, sequences from the final TR7 were processed using the following pipeline for similarity searches: ‘‘phylogenetic clades”, ‘‘monocots” (database type), 10e-5 (e-value), ‘‘gene families” (gene family type) and ‘‘transfer from both gene family and best hit” (functional annotation type). GO enrichment analysis was done based on the dataset compared to a background (p-value, 0.01).

KEGG enrichment analysis of differentially expressed transcripts

KEGG is a database resource for understanding high-level functions and utilities of the biological system, especially large-scale molecular datasets generated by genome sequencing and other high-throughput experimental technologies (http://www.genome.jp/kegg/). We used KOBAS (KEGG Orthology Based Annotation System) version 2.0 software to test the statistical enrichment of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in KEGG pathways (http://kobas.cbi.pku.edu.cn/) [33].

Validation of expression by qRT-PCR

To validate the expression pattern of differentially expressed genes identified in the RNA-seq analysis, 20 pairs of specific primers were designed using the Primer Express software (Applied Biosystems). For each sample, reactions were performed with three technical replicates and with two new biological replicates. Total RNA isolated from whole plants was first treated with DNAse I (New England Biolabs®). Reverse transcription was performed using Taqman First Strand cDNA Synthesis kit (Invitrogen) and random hexamers primers, according to the manufacturer’s recommendation. To each well, 1.0 μL of 2.5 x diluted first strand cDNA, 5 μL of SYBR Green PCR Master Mix (Applied Biosystems), 10 μM of the forward and reverse primer were added, bring the final volume up to 10 μL. PCR reactions were performed in the Applied Biosystems 7500 Real-Time PCR Systems under standard conditions. The plant GAPDH constitutive gene (glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase) was used as internal control gene [34]. The results of qRT-PCR were analyzed by the 2-ΔΔCt quantitative method [35].

Results and Discussion

Experimental design and overview of RNA-seq analysis

Seedlings of sugarcane grown in vitro from meristem culture were used for in vitro multiplication. The tillers of the plantlets were transferred to a fresh MS medium and were kept at 28°C for about a month in the greenhouse (Fig 1A). After multiplication, the plantlets were rooted and divided in two parts for infection assays; one was immersed in an Aaa suspension and the other part was used as control, immersed in distilled water. Then, the plantlets were transferred to fresh MS medium and were kept for 7 days. After this period, whole seedlings were collected for total RNA extraction and sent for RNA sequencing. On the seventh day after infection, the presence of stripes in the leaves of sugarcane plantlets (Fig 1B) became evident, while control seedlings leaves did not show stripes (Fig 1C). The first symptoms of the disease appeared on the leaves as water-soaked stripes that gradually become reddish [36].

thumbnail
Fig 1. Schematic representation of the Aaa pathogen infection essay in sugarcane seedlings (Saccharum sp. SP70-1143 Cv) in vitro growth at 28°C.

(A) The of seedlings roots grown in vitro after 30 days were immersed in a suspension (106 CFU ml-1) with Aaa and the other half used as a control seedlings were immersed in distilled water. Seedlings infected and controls were transferred to MS medium and kept for 7 days and after this period, whole plantlets were collected and immediately frozen in nitrogen. (B) Image of the control leaves without symptoms seedlings and (C) image of the early symptoms of red stripe disease caused by Aaa in vitro grown seedlings leaves.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.g001

The four libraries were sequenced using a single-end of 76bp program in the Illumina GAII sequencer, resulting in a total of 27,623,503 million reads (Table 1). These reads were filtered with respect to quality (Q20), which resulted in 13,755,354 million reads. The Illumina sequencing data of sugarcane infected with Aaa were deposited into the NCBI SRA database under accession number SRP041671.

thumbnail
Table 1. Summary of the read numbers and alignment obtained from RNA sequencing of control and Aaa-infected samples.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.t001

De novo transcriptome assembly and differential expression analysis

To generate the TR7, we have used 18 sugarcane RNA-seq libraries, 14 from drought treated plants [37] and 4 libraries of the experiment with Aaa described here. Together, these 18 libraries present approximately 22 Gbp of data for 247 million of raw reads (Fig 2A; S1 Table). TR7 contains 168.767 transcripts, with the total length of sequences of 170,049,783 base pairs, the shortest sequence length equal to 100bp and the longest sequence length has 15,094bp. The total number of Ns in sequences was 16,354 and the value of N50 was 1626. The filtered reads (2,639,347) were mapped in the TR7 (Table 1). A total of 168,767 reference transcripts were considered, where 44,791 (26.54%) had at least one read out of the four libraries aligned with transcripts of TR7. Next, aiming at analyzing the expression level of transcripts and the pairwise comparisons between biological replicates, a Pearson's Correlation Coefficient analysis was employed to compare Log2 of RPKM in rep 1 relative to Log2 of RPKM in rep 2 in both control and infected plants. These computational results showed a R2 = 0.875 (Fig 3A) and 0.738 (Fig 3B) correlation between the two replicates. These correspond to a high confident correlation, indicating that the biological replicas have good reproducibility. To obtain the differential expression of each transcript, we have calculated the Log2 Fold changes between inoculated and control libraries. Differentially expressed transcripts were selected by Fisher’s exact-test with p-value < 0.01 (the two biological replicates) and transcripts that have similar expression on both replicas. These cutoffs allowed the selection of 798 DETs, 588 were upregulated and 210 downregulated (Fig 4A).

thumbnail
Fig 2. Workflow of analysis of the construction and analyses of the sugarcane reference TR7.

(A) The transcriptome assembly De novo was generated from sugarcane RNA libraries drought treated and libraries Aaa pathogen treated obtained from of Illumina. After was applied to quality filter to all raw reads the quality filter and next, were removed duplicate genome sequences from the dataset. The Velvet and Oases software was used for the de novo assembly of clean reads to generate the sugarcane reference transcriptome TR7 with 168,767 transcripts. (B) Differential expression analysis and annotated functional in TRAPID. About 14 millions of reads were mapping no TR7. Transcripts differentially expressed were selected by Fisher’s exact-test, p-value < 0.01 and transcripts that have the same expression on both replicas.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.g002

thumbnail
Fig 3. Pearson's correlation coefficients of RPKM values of expressed transcripts between biological replicates within each control and infected library.

(A) Control library. (B) Infected library. RPKM values were transformed to logarithmic scale in base 2 which are shown as scatter plot. Each dot represents the RPKM value of a specific transcript.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.g003

thumbnail
Fig 4. Annotation of differentially expressed transcripts in TRAPID.

(A) Number of differentially regulated transcripts. (B) Number of transcripts annotated using such criteria an E-value threshold of 10−5 and selected the best hit for each transcript, (C) corresponding to 467 genes. (D) Sequence length meta annotation. (E) Histogram of the transcripts length distribution. (F) Number of transcripts annotated with best hit search. (G) ORF information. For additional details, see S2 Table.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.g004

Functional annotation

The DEGs were annotated and functionally categorized by the online TRAPID tool [31]. TRAPID uses the PLAZA 2.5 database [32] to define gene functions based on the similarity to sequences in other organisms. All 798 DETs sequences were inserted into TRAPID and processed for sequence similarity searches against reference monocot proteins and gene families (GF). In total, 723 transcripts were annotated, corresponding to 467 genes, with 335 were upregulated and 132 were downregulated (Fig 4B and 4C). The complete list of the DETs with homologous genes and Log2 Fold changes was obtained from comparisons between infected and control libraries (S2 Table). Exactly 75 transcripts (10.37%) could not be annotated, likely because these transcripts may include a number of novel genes or non-coding RNA sequences from sugarcane (Fig 4B; S3 Table). For instance, Locus_87_Transcript_1_1 (S3 Table), which was downregulated in presence of the pathogen, was classified as long intergenic noncoding RNA (lincRNA), using a database from our laboratory. LincRNA are endogenous long noncoding RNA, with more than 200 nucleotides. These have emerged as important regulators of diverse biological processes in plants [3840]. However, little is known of the roles of lincRNA. The identification of this sugarcane lincRNA, regulated in response to pathogenic infection, can be important for future analysis.

The average sequence length of the 798 transcripts is 1,445.1bp (Table 2). Among them, 71.1% were full-length or quasi full-length transcripts and only 3.7% have no information, according to the TRAPID meta-annotation analysis (Fig 4D). The distribution of the transcripts sizes range from 901–1.300bp (20.56%), 1.300–1.699bp (20.18%), 502–901bp (18.15%), 103–502bp (18.58) and transcripts > 1.699 (28.8%) (Fig 4E). With an e-value threshold of 10−5, a total of 723 (91.75%) transcripts had the best BLAST matches with proteins in the PLAZA 2.5 database. Approximately 64% (462) of the transcripts sequences had significant matches with genes from Sorghum bicolor, followed by 187 of Zea mays (25.9%), 28 of Oryza sativa ssp. indica (3.9%), 27 of Brachypodium distachyon (3.7%) and 19 of Oryza sativa ssp. japonica (2.6%) (Fig 4F). TRAPID identified 347 different GF among the annotated transcripts, being the peroxidase the most abundant GF (Table 2). In addition, 599 transcripts (75.1%) had at least 1 GO term, totaling 1,094 GO terms identified in the differential transcriptome (Table 2).

Among the top six up and downregulated differentially expressed genes in sugarcane infected by Aaa (Table 3) we found a thaumatin-like protein (TLP), a monomeric sweet-taste protein [41], which due to its expression induced by stress like pathogen/pest attack, is classified as PR protein family 5 (PR5) [42]. TLP have well described antifungal activity, causing osmotic breakage of transmembrane pores of the fungal plasma membranes [43]. Transgenic plants constitutively overexpressing TLPs often show enhanced fungal [4448] and bacteria resistance [49]. Methyltransferase type 11 was one of the five most highly-expressed genes among the DEGs. Methyltransferases proteins transfer the methyl group to molecules, such as DNA, RNA, proteins and small molecules altering the activity/functions of their targets. Post-translational modification by protein methylation also play regulatory roles in various biological processes, including plant immunity [5052].

thumbnail
Table 3. The top six up- and downregulated differentially expressed genes in sugarcane infected by Aaa.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.t003

Identification of conserved domains in protein

Domain information is useful for predicting gene function. Functional analysis of protein sequences in the InterPro database classifies proteins into families based in the presence of conserved domains and important sites. The TRAPID through InterPro found 740 domains in 643 transcripts (80.6%) (Table 2). The ten most abundant conserved domains present in DEGs are shown in Table 4. Among the upregulated transcripts, the most conserved domains confer peroxidase activity. The peroxidase genes belong to the Class III of plants that are induced in response to many pathogens. They are directly or indirectly involved in various physiological processes [53]. They are directly or indirectly involved in various physiological processes including reactive oxygen species (ROS), lignin and suberin synthesis and synthesis of phytoalexins [53]. In Arabidopsis mutants with PRX33 reduced expression there is an increased susceptibility to Pseudomonas syringae [54].

thumbnail
Table 4. The ten most frequently occurred protein domains in the sequence of sugarcane infected by Aaa.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.t004

On the other hand, the most abundant domains in exclusively downregulated transcripts were the Dishevelleds (DVLs). This conserved domain is present in small polypeptides that can act as molecular regulators that coordinate cellular processes necessary for the differentiation, growth and development of the plant [55]. Two other domains are related to the RNA recognition: motif domain and Hyaluronan/mRNA-binding protein. The latter is involved in nuclear functions, such as the remodeling of chromatin and the regulation of transcription [56,57]. Another important conserved domain is methyltransferase type 11. Interestingly, proteins with conserved domains hyaluronan/mRNA-binding protein and methyltransferase type 11 are related to epigenetic regulation [58].

Identification of genes exclusively expressed in control and infected libraries

In order to identify expressed genes, present only in either infected or control samples, we carried out comparisons between the libraries. Out of the 467 differentially expressed genes, six were exclusively expressed in infected plants and only 1 in control plants (aldehyde dehydrogenase putative protein) (Table 5). NAC proteins are involved in developmental processes [59,60], hormone signaling [61,62], secondary cell-wall synthesis and programmed cell death [63,64] and in plant responses to abiotic and biotic stresses [6567]. The amino acid transporters are membrane proteins that mediate the flow of amino acids in plants and have various roles in the growth and development of plants, including metabolism of nucleotides, chlorophyll, hormones and secondary metabolites [68,69]. In addition, they play crucial roles during pathogen infection, being important sources of nitrogen for many biotrophic pathogens and also as providers of defense compounds [69,70].

thumbnail
Table 5. List *exclusive genes present in infected or control libraries in sugarcane infected by Aaa.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.t005

Aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) was the only gene identified as exclusive of control library as differentially expressed. ALDHs are involved in plant growth, development and stress responses [7173]. In Capsicum annuum, aldehyde dehydrogenase CaALDH1 interacts with Xanthomonas effector AvrBsT, promoting effector triggered cell death and defense responses [74]. There is evidence that the pathogen can suppress the expression of this key gene during infection, thus contributing to its success in colonizing the host cells of sugarcane [75]. Interestingly, this was the only homologous encoding ALDH, which was downregulated, while other homologous to this gene had their expression increased, suggesting that they can be isoforms with different functions in sugarcane.

GO functional analysis of genes expressed during infection in sugarcane

The GO is an international standardized gene function classification system that describes properties of genes and their products in any organism [76]. In order to analyze the sugarcane enriched functional GO terms in response to Aaa, we have used the web-based TRAPID tool. The analysis revealed a total 798 DETs, 599 (75.1%) (Table 2) of them were annotated successfully to GO terms. There were 44 of these terms significantly regulated, with 433 upregulated and 166 downregulated transcripts (Fig 5; S4 Table).

thumbnail
Fig 5. Histogram presentation of the GO enrichment analysis of sugarcane plantlets infected by Aaa.

TRAPID system calculated GO enrichment based on the upregulated and downregulated dataset compared to a background (p-value 0.01). The x-axis indicates the percent of genes and the y-axis indicates the GO terms. GO analysis to (A) upregulated and (B) downregulated DEGs under biotic stress. For additional details, see S4 Table.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.g005

All transcripts were then assigned into three main GO categories: Biological Process, Cellular Component and Molecular Function. Comparing the upregulated and downregulated groups, we observed that the latter set exhibits a greater number of enriched GO terms. The “oxidoreductase activity and nucleotide binding” terms in Molecular Function, the “oxidation reduction and cellular biosynthetic process” terms in Biological Process and all 4 GO terms, and Cell in Cellular Component, were significantly overrepresented up and downregulated GO categories, respectively (Fig 5A and 5B).

The GO term “iron ion binding” in Molecular Function was the most enriched one in the upregulated set, while in the downregulated one the GO term “cellular carbohydrate biosynthetic process” in Biological Process was enriched significantly. Genes annotated to the GO term "iron ion binding" code for proteins responsive to stress among them: lipoxygenase, heat shock protein DnaJ and NADPH oxidase. Also, it is noteworthy the enrichment of genes annotated to GO term “heme binding” in Molecular Function. These genes code for peroxidases, cytochrome P450 and catalases, suggesting that these proteins play critical roles during Aaa infection in sugarcane. Interestingly, all GO terms in Biological Process in the downregulated set are involved in carbohydrate metabolism, specifically “polysaccharide biosynthetic process”, “starch metabolic process”, “cellular glucan metabolic process”, indicating that these pathways were strongly affected by the pathogen in sugarcane.

We have also identified that most enriched GO terms in Molecular Function in the downregulated set, include “nucleotide binding”, “nucleic acid binding”, “purine nucleotide binding”, “ribonucleotide binding”, “purine ribonucleotide binding” and “adenyl ribonucleotide binding” suggesting that the plant reduces the energy spent in transcription and translation of proteins, diverting to other processes involved in the defense response.

KEGG enrichment analysis during infection by Aaa

The mapping of metabolic pathways available by the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) provides classifications that are valuable for studying the complex biological functions of genes. Using the KOBAS2.0 software [33], a total of 410 genes annotated to Sorghum bicolor were associated with 115 predicted KEGG metabolic pathways. As a whole, the DEGs were significantly enriched in 13 KEGG metabolic pathways, using the criteria of P-values < 0.05. Among them, 8 KEGG metabolic pathways were significantly enriched in the upregulated set of DEG and 5 pathways in the downregulated DEGs (Fig 6; S5 Table). The “carbon fixation in photosynthetic organisms” was significantly enriched in upregulated and downregulated DEGs. The top three pathways with most representation of genes were “biosynthesis of secondary metabolites”, “ribosome” and “phenylalanine metabolism” (Fig 6A).

thumbnail
Fig 6. Histogram presentation of the 8 KEGG metabolic pathways significantly enriched to DEGs of sugarcane plantlets infected by pathogen.

The x-axis indicates the number of genes assigned to a specific pathway, the y-axis indicates the KEGG pathway. Enriched metabolic pathways to (A) upregulated and (B) downregulated DEGs. For additional details, see S5 Table.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.g006

The KEGG enrichment analysis also showed that the metabolic pathways involved with amino acid metabolism (phenylalanine, tryptophan, glutathione and beta-alanine metabolism), carbohydrate metabolism (glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism glycolysis/gluconeogenesis and pyruvate metabolism), biosynthesis of secondary metabolites (phenylpropanoid biosynthesis) were significantly regulated in sugarcane in response to Aaa. These metabolic pathways have key roles in the innate immunity of the plant.

Amino acids not only participates as precursors in the synthesis of proteins, but also have critical roles for plants in growth, development, reproduction, defense, and environmental responses [77]. Tryptophan is a precursor of alkaloids, phytoalexins, and indole glucosinolates, whereas phenylalanine is a common precursor of numerous phenolic compounds, such as flavonoids, condensed tannins, lignans, lignin, and phenylpropanoid/benzenoid volatiles [77,78]. In Arabidopsis mutants, glutathione and tryptophan metabolisms are required for immunity during the hypersensitive response to fungus (genus Colletotrichum) [79]. In the sugarcane differential transcriptome, the phenylalanine and tryptophan biosynthesis were significantly enriched in upregulated DEGs, suggesting an important role in the defense response of sugarcane against Aaa. In contrast, beta-alanine and glutathione biosynthesis were enriched in the downregulated DEGs dataset.

Plants secondary metabolites (PSMs) form a group of diverse organic molecules that often promote growth and development of the plant. In many cases they are capable to induce the synthesis of defense molecules [80]. The metabolic pathways related to biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, such as “phenylalanine metabolism”, “biosynthesis of secondary metabolites” and “phenylpropanoid biosynthesis”, were significantly enriched to upregulated DEGs. Furthermore, differential analysis revealed that genes four phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) were upregulated in sugarcane infected by Aaa (S9 Table). The PAL is the first committed enzyme in the pathway in the formation of many phenolic compounds. Among other functions in plants, phenylalanine and phenylpropanoids are common precursors of numerous phenolic compounds and have a vital role in the resistance against pathogens [81,82]. The flavonoids, an important group derived from phenylpropanoids, play a major role in plant responses to both biotic and abiotic stresses [83,84]. Our results suggest that the biosynthesis of theses secondary metabolites participate in the defense response of sugarcane during infection with Aaa pathogenic bacteria.

The fixed carbon during photosynthesis is converted to sugars and their derivatives, which are part of the primary metabolism core in plants [85]. Sugar-mediated signaling also contributes to the immune response of the plant against a range of pathogens [16,17,86]. Given the importance of this topic, carbohydrates metabolism will be discussed in greater depth in specific topic further.

Regulation of genes from biosynthetic pathways of Ethylene and Jasmonic acid

Plant hormones are small organic molecules that are required in low concentrations and that regulate development, reproduction and immune responses. Essential functions of signaling pathways, mediated by ET, Salicylic Acid (SA) and JA in the plant innate immune system, are well described in the literature [8789]. Analysis of differentially expressed genes, revealed that the biosynthetic pathways of ET e JA, were upregulated in sugarcane (Fig 7; S6 Table), suggesting the production of these molecules during infection with Aaa.

thumbnail
Fig 7. Sugarcane hormonal responses to bacteria pathogenic Aaa.

Differentially expressed genes related biosynthesis of Ethylene and Jasmonate. Red for downregulated and blue for upregulated genes. For additional details of the genes see S6 Table.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.g007

In infected sugarcane, genes of ET biosynthetic pathway and ethylene-activated signaling pathways, such as 1-amino-cyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase (ACS) and AP2-like ethylene-responsive transcription factor, were upregulated (Fig 7A). The ACS is an enzyme that catalyzes the synthesis of 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid from S-Adenosyl methionine. Depending on the type of pathogen and environmental conditions, ET may act as a positive or negative regulator of disease resistance [42,90]. Exogenous ET induces PR genes such as PR1, PR5 and PR10 in rice plants [91]. Transgenic rice plants overexpressing ACS2 significantly increased resistance to rice blast and sheath blight without negatively affecting plant productivity [92]. Moreover, transgenic rice plants with OsEDR1 (enhanced disease resistance 1) gene knockdown led to a decrease in gene expression of ACS, causing increased resistance to X. Oryzae pv. Oryzae [93]. ET induces the gene expression of a subfamily of ERFs (AP2/ERF family), particularly the AP2-like ethylene-responsive transcription factors that were differentially expressed in sugarcane. These transcription factors are often involved in response to pathogens by regulating downstream ET-responsive genes via the GCC-box elements in promoters [94].

The JA and its derivatives have been recognized as key regulators in plant defense responses [95]. Several genes encoding to lipoxygenases (LOX) of the JA biosynthetic pathway were induced during infection with Aaa in sugarcane (Fig 7B). The LOX enzyme catalyzes the second step of JA synthesis. Treatment of rice plants with exogenous JA induces the expression of PRs genes [96]. JA also is involved in the production of secondary metabolites including terpenes, terpene indole alkaloids, phenylpropanoids, flavonoids and nicotine [97]. Interestingly, several genes of the phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathways of flavonoids, alkaloids and glucosinolates, as well as PRs genes, were strongly upregulated in sugarcane. JA signaling may interact synergistic or antagonistically with SA during plant-pathogen interaction [98]. In sugarcane infected with Aaa, it appears to interact antagonistically with these hormone, since no expressed differentially genes to biosynthesis of SA have not been identified.

Carbohydrate metabolism regulated in response to Aaa in sugarcane

Although considerable progress in the description of plant defense response mechanisms, little is known about the role of the primary metabolic pathways in the innate immunity of the plant [99]. On the other hand, the metabolites and signaling sugars are not only critical for growth and development of the plant, evidences suggest their involvement in the induction of a large number of defense responses to prevent or even avoid the proliferation of a potential pathogen [99,100]. Several metabolic pathways involved in the metabolism of carbohydrates were regulated in sugarcane, suggesting a possible role in the defense response (Fig 8; S7 Table).

thumbnail
Fig 8. Regulation of photosynthesis and carbohydrate metabolism in sugarcane infected with Aaa.

Altered expression of genes in photosynthesis, glycolysis, metabolism starch, metabolism of raffinose, metabolism trehalose, sucrose metabolism, transport of sugar and mitochondrial respiratory chain. Red for downregulated and blue for upregulated genes. For additional details of the genes, see S7 Table.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.g008

During the process of infection in sugarcane, the genes ferredoxin [2Fe-2S] and ferredoxin—NADP+ reductase, which are final receptors of electrons, were upregulated, suggesting an activation of the first part of photosynthesis. On the other hand, we have observed that the genes encoding to ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase and triosephosphate isomerase were downregulated, suggesting a repression (Calvin cycle). In the photorespiratory pathway, the gene glycolate oxidase (GOX), which catalyzes the conversion of glycolate into glyoxylate, was upregulated in response to Aaa. Studies have shown that the photorespiration is also involved in defense responses [99,101]. This enzyme is synthesized in abundance in response to pathogenic fungus [102,103]. The silencing of GOX in N. benthamiana and Arabidopsis makes them susceptible to various pathogenic bacteria due to the delayed onset of hypersensitivity response (HR), a reduction in H2O2 accumulation and callose deposition [104].

Genes involved in sucrose biosynthesis, such as sucrose-phosphatase (SPP), involved in sucrose degradation such cell wall invertase (cwINV2), and sucrose synthase 4 (SUSY4) were all upregulated in infected sugarcane. Substrates obtained from the sucrose metabolism are fed into the glycolysis pathway. An increase in the mRNA levels of genes encoding the enzymes in the glycolysis pathway was observed. Genes of the pyruvate metabolism were induced, including aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) and pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC2), suggesting that pyruvate is not being converted into acetyl-CoA by pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH). The pyruvate dehydrogenase enzyme acts negatively regulating PDH enzyme. Interestingly, the pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (PDK) was induced in sugarcane, suggesting that acetyl-CoA is not being formed and that pyruvate is being diverted to the fermentation reactions.

Sucrose and monosaccharide transporters mediate long distance transport of sugars from source tissues to sink organs and constitute key components of carbon partitioning at the whole plant level. The genes of the monosaccharide transporter (MST)-like superfamily were differentially regulated in infected sugarcane. The genes HEX6, encoding to hexose carrier protein, were upregulated while the genes encoding sugar/inositol transporter (INT), monosaccharide-sensing protein 3 (MSSP3) genes were downregulated in sugarcane. These data suggest that an active transport of sugar occurs in sugarcane infected cells.

Furthermore, we observed that genes encoding proteins in multi-enzyme complexes of the mitochondrial respiratory chain were differentially regulated in response to Aaa. Some genes of the NADH dehydrogenase complex and ATP synthase were upregulated. Similarly, the ubiquinol oxidase (AOX) genes, which act in the transfer of electrons in the inner membrane of mitochondria, increased their expression. These data suggest that mitochondrial respiratory chain is active, although some genes are downregulated.

During infection with virulent or avirulent pathogens, a decrease in the rate of photosynthesis have been reported [105108]. It has been proposed that a decrease in photosynthesis (first part) and carbon fixation metabolism (second part) relieves energy costs that these processes require, enabling other processes that provide energy, such as the respiratory metabolism (glycolysis and mitochondrial respiratory chain), cell wall invertase and carbohydrate transporters [106,107,109]. However, in sugarcane infected with Aaa the first part of photosynthesis has been activated. Moreover, we observed upregulation of invertase (cwINV2), whose function is to irreversibly hydrolyze sucrose into glucose and fructose. It has been described that upregulation of cwINV during infection with pathogens allows the induction of several PR genes [109113]. Particularly, loss of function of a rice cwINV ortholog gene (GIF1) caused hyper susceptibility to postharvest fungal pathogens, while constitutive expression of rice GIF1 increased resistance to fungi and bacteria [113]. In addition, the metabolic changes in sugar species and concentration provided by an invertase and repression of photosynthesis lead to transition from source to sink tissues. These changes can lead to an increase in expression of genes related to defense, to the production of secondary metabolites and to other processes required for fighting pathogens [99,100,114]. Therefore, infection with Aaa could provoke an imbalance on carbon partitioning and activate respiratory metabolism pathways, likely supplied by the products generated from the breakdown sucrose by the cwINV2 enzyme in the apoplast. The resulting hexose, then, enters the cells through sugars carriers, which are expressed in sugarcane. Finally, these changes suggest that sugar partitioning is important to the defense response during infection with Aaa.

Pathways involved in raffinose, trehalose and starch metabolism were regulated in the presence of Aaa. Genes involved in starch biosynthesis were downregulated, while genes encoding enzymes of the metabolism of raffinose and trehalose were strongly upregulated, suggesting the accumulation of these sugars in sugarcane during infection with Aaa.

Trehalose is a potential signal metabolite in plant interactions with pathogens. In wheat, the accumulation of trehalose partially induced resistance against powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici) by activation of PAL and peroxidases genes [115,116]. Knockout of the TPS gene (another gene of trehalose biosynthesis) in A. thaliana plants attenuated the defense against the green peach aphid (Myzus persicae). However, when trehalose is applied to the mutant, it restores aphid resistance. The possible accumulation of trehalose in sugarcane suggests that it could have an important role during the defense response against Aaa.

Innate immune system was induced in sugarcane

The PRRs regulate many physiological and cellular processes, including the innate immune system in plants. The PRRs trigger ROS production, Ca2+ burst, rapid activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MPKs), hormones biosynthesis, alterations in the plant cell wall, activation of HR associated with programmed cell death (PCD), induction of SAR, upregulation of proteins (PR) [75,96,117121]. The PRRs genes were significantly induced in sugarcane in response to the red stripe disease (S8 Table). Annotation of the TRAPID showed nine genes encoding PRRs, most of which belong to the class of LRR-RLK, including the genes encoding a somatic embryogenesis receptor-like kinase (SERK), SERK1 and (BAK1/SERK3). The SERK genes are known for their functions in regulating plant development and immunity [122126]. In addition to AtSERK3/BAK1, the SERK1 ortholog in tomato is required for immune receptor Ve1-mediated resistance to race 1 of Verticillium dahlia [127]. Previous studies have shown that BAK1/SERK3 has a role as co-receptor for several LRR-RLKs (FLS2, EFR, BRI1), but also LRR-RLPs, such as Ve1 and RLP30, triggers downstream PTI responses [119,127131]. Two genes encoding LRR-CRKs (Cysteine-rich Receptor-like protein kinase) were strongly expressed in response to the Aaa pathogen. LRR-CRKs genes play important roles in the regulation of pathogen defense, leading to induced HR-like cell PCD and oxidative stress [132139].

Two NADPH oxidase respiratory burst (RBOH) homologous genes were strongly induced (S8 Table). The loss-of-function in RBOH-RNAi mutants eliminated the production of ROS during defense response against avirulent pathogens in A. thaliana [140]. The ROS accumulation is also associated with the strengthening of the cell wall and activation of HR associated with cell death [141]. In addition to the RBOH, the class III peroxidases also contribute to apoplastic ROS production [142,143] and lignin formation [53]. In Arabidopsis, Prx33 and Prx34 are the main ROS-producing peroxidases during defense against P. syringae [54,142]. In sugarcane infected by Aaa we identified 10 genes encoding to peroxidases (S8 Table). Therefore, the induction of RHOB and peroxidases genes in sugarcane suggests an oxidative stress response against Aaa-mediated ROS production and strengthening of the cell wall.

The Aaa bacteria possesses four types of secretion system (types I, II, III, IV) in its genome [11,13]. The type III secretion system (T3SS) is involved with virulence capacity and the injected effectors into the plant cell and can be recognized by NBS-LRR genes (R genes), triggering the ETI [144]. Here, two NBS-LRR genes sugarcane were induced, suggesting that Aa injected effectors in sugarcane cells via T3SS, possibly activating ETI (S8 Table).

ET/JA and SA hormones regulate different sets of genes related to pathogenesis and are involved in triggering the SAR, which induces defenses in not-infected distant tissues after activation of the local resistance [145]. The SAR is characterized by a lasting state of wide spectrum and is normally induced after HR [145], but can also be induced by PTI. Several potential SAR mobile signals have been identified [146]. Numerous studies have shown that DIR is essential for SAR [146149]. Among the DETs it stands out a DIR gene, suggesting induction of SAR in sugarcane infected by Aaa (S8 Table). PR proteins are often induced during pathogen infection and encode small, secreted or vacuole-targeted proteins with antimicrobial activities [150,151]. The genes encoding for peroxidase, phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL), proteinase inhibitor, thaumatin, endochitinase, chitinase, xylanase inhibitor protein and endoglucanase were strongly upregulated in sugarcane in response to Aaa (S8 Table).

Validation of RNA-seq by qRT-PCR

Real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) analysis was carried out with RNA extracted from biological replicates in order to corroborate the RNA-seq data. Candidate genes chosen for validation are distributed along the metabolic pathways described in this work and were differentially regulated in both replicas used for RNA-seq (Fig 9; S9 and S10 Tables).

thumbnail
Fig 9. Validation of RNA-seq analysis by qRT-PCR using genes from different pathways.

Two biological replicates were used. Gene names correspond to those listed in S9 and S10 Tables. Relative expression by qRT-PCR. The bars represent the relative expression of three technical replicates (n = 3) and standard deviation (Green bars: replicate 1 and blue bars: replicate 2). The relative expression values above the dotted line are upregulated genes, whereas below line correspond to downregulated genes. GAPDH was used as a reference gene for normalization of gene-expression data. These 20 genes validated in replicates were grouped into four categories, (A) genes related to stress, (B) genes that coding to several pathways, (C) primary carbohydrate metabolism pathways genes and (D) genes encoding for PRRs. The values of the quantitative method ΔΔCt can be seen in S10 Table

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.g009

These 20 genes were grouped into 4 categories. Seven genes related to stress such as SERPIN1, peroxidase, thaumatin, xylanase inhibitor, PR, MACPF and CRRSP were validated in both replicas (Fig 9A). Five genes that code for other pathways such as genes AVP1, C2H2-type, CBS, AOX and phosphoribohydrolase were induced in sugarcane (Fig 9B). For the primary carbohydrate metabolism pathways, five genes such as SIP2, SPP, CWIN2, PDK and PDC (Fig 9C) were also upregulated in response to the pathogen. Finally, the qRT-PCR results also confirmed that the genes that encoding for PRRs such as SERK1, LRR protein and CRK were also validated in replicates (Fig 9D).

Conclusions

This study provides the first transcriptome dataset of sugarcane in response to the pathogenic bacteria Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae. A de novo transcriptome assembly has generated 168.767 transcripts obtained from 18 sugarcane RNA libraries. This study also identified 798 differentially expressed transcripts, among them 723 were annotated, corresponding to 467 genes. Analysis of the enriched functional GO terms showed that 44 terms were significantly regulated. It also revealed that the GO terms “iron ion binding” in Molecular Function was the highly enriched one in the upregulated group. We also identified that the most GO terms in Molecular Function to downregulated groups are involved with the processes of transcription and translation of proteins. KEGG enrichment analysis identified 13 metabolic pathways. The top three pathways with most representation of genes were “biosynthesis of secondary metabolites”, “ribosome” and “phenylalanine metabolism”. KEGG enrichment analysis also showed that the metabolic pathways involved with amino acid metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism and biosynthesis of secondary metabolites were significantly regulated, suggesting that have key roles in the innate immunity of sugarcane upon bacterial infection. Analysis of DEGs revealed that the biosynthetic pathways genes of ET e JA, PRRs, oxidative burst genes, NBS-LRR genes, cell wall fortification genes, SAR induction genes and genes PR were upregulated, suggesting that the PTI and ETI mechanisms of defense responses were induced in sugarcane during infection by Aaa pathogen. Our results showed that several metabolic pathways involved in the metabolism of carbohydrates were regulated in sugarcane, suggesting a possible role in the defense response. Finally, 20 genes were validated in both replicates. The results of this study contribute significantly to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms triggered in sugarcane during infection by Aaa. Lastly, the identification of a large number of transcripts differentially regulated opens the opportunity for the development of molecular markers associated with disease tolerance in breeding programs.

Supporting Information

S1 Table. Summary of the TR7 transcriptome.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.s001

(XLSX)

S2 Table. List of the 798 differentially regulated transcripts with number reads, RPKM, results of Fisher exact test and Log2 Fold Change.

The transcripts were processed for sequence similarity searches against reference monocot proteins and gene families (GF) in TRAPID.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.s002

(XLSX)

S3 Table. Transcripts that could not be annotated.

In orange a transcript that was classified the long intergenic noncoding RNA (lincRNA).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.s003

(XLSX)

S4 Table. List of the 44 enriched GO functional terms in sugarcane in response to Aaa obtained from the TRAPID web tool.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.s004

(XLSX)

S5 Table. List of KEGG metabolic pathways significantly enriched to upregulated and downregulated DEGs in sugarcane plantlets infected by Acidovorax.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.s005

(XLSX)

S6 Table. List of differentially expressed genes coding for hormone biosynthesis pathways in sugarcane infected with Aaa.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.s006

(XLSX)

S7 Table. List of differentially expressed genes coding for members of carbohydrate metabolism in sugarcane infected with Aaa.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.s007

(XLSX)

S8 Table. List of differentially expressed genes for stress response pathways in sugarcane infected with Aaa.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.s008

(XLSX)

S9 Table. List of 20 genes chosen for validation of RNA-seq data.

The GAPDH was used as constitutive gene for normalization of relative expression data.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.s009

(XLSX)

S10 Table. List of 20 genes chosen for validation of RNA-seq data with the values of the quantitative method ΔΔCt.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166473.s010

(XLSX)

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Luiz Vinicius S. C do Carmo for technical assistance.

Author Contributions

  1. Conceptualization: PCGF ABSB CAR.
  2. Data curation: LF.
  3. Formal analysis: CG MFL EMA JOPE SL.
  4. Funding acquisition: PCGF ASH.
  5. Investigation: ABSB CAR CG EMA JOPE FT LF.
  6. Methodology: ABSB CAR CG FT.
  7. Resources: PCGF ASH SL.
  8. Supervision: PCGF.
  9. Validation: ABSB CG.
  10. Writing – original draft: ABSB CG.
  11. Writing – review & editing: PCGF ASH SL.

References

  1. 1. Cheavegatti-gianotto A, C De Abreu Marília H, Arruda P, Ciero L, Ferro JA, et al. Sugarcane (Saccharum X officinarum): A Reference Study for the Regulation of Genetically Modified Cultivars in Brazil. Trop Plant Biol. 2011;4: 62–89. pmid:21614128
  2. 2. D’Hont a. Unraveling the genome structure of polyploids using FISH and GISH; examples of sugarcane and banana. Cytogenetic and genome research. 2005;109: 27–33. pmid:15753555
  3. 3. Dillon SL, Shapter FM, Henry RJ, Cordeiro G, Izquierdo L, Lee LS. Domestication to crop improvement: genetic resources for Sorghum and Saccharum (Andropogoneae). Annals of botany. 2007;100: 975–89. pmid:17766842
  4. 4. Hotta CT, Lembke CG, Domingues DS, Ochoa EA, Crivellari AC, Santos WD, et al. The Biotechnology Roadmap for Sugarcane Improvement. Tropical Plant Biol. 2010;3: 75–87.
  5. 5. UK CI. Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae. Distribution maps of plants diseases. Wallingford; 1995.
  6. 6. Fontana PD, Fontana CA, Bassi D, Puglisi E, Salazar SM, Vignolo GM, et al. Genome Sequence of Acidovorax avenae Strain T10_61 Associated with Sugarcane Red Stripe in Argentina. Genome Announc. 2016;4: 15–16.
  7. 7. Fontana PD, Rago AM, Fontana CA, Vignolo GM, Cocconcelli PS, Mariotti JA. Isolation and genetic characterization of Acidovorax avenae from red stripe infected sugarcane in Northwestern Argentina. Eur J Plant Pathol. 2013;137: 525–534.
  8. 8. Giglioti E. A., & Matsuoka S. False red stripe: A guide to sugarcane diseases. Rott P., Bailey R. A., Comstock J. C., Croft B. J. & ASS , editor. Montpellier: CIRAD/ISSCT.; 2000.
  9. 9. Li B, Liu B, Yu R, Tao Z, Wang Y, Xie G, et al. Bacterial brown stripe of rice in soil-less culture system caused by Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae in China. Journal of General Plant Pathology. 2010;77: 64–67.
  10. 10. Schaad NW, Postnikova E, Sechler A, Claflin LE, Vidaver AK, Jones JB, et al. Reclassification of subspecies of Acidovorax avenae as A. Avenae (Manns 1905) emend., A. cattleyae (Pavarino, 1911) comb. nov., A. citrulli Schaad et al., 1978) comb. nov., and proposal of A. oryzae sp. nov. Systematic and applied microbiology. 2008;31: 434–46. pmid:18993005
  11. 11. Xie G-L, Zhang G-Q, Liu H, Lou M-M, Tian W-X, Li B, et al. Genome sequence of the rice-pathogenic bacterium Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae RS-1. Journal of bacteriology. 2011;193: 5013–4. pmid:21742879
  12. 12. Liu H, Tian W-X, Ibrahim M, Li B, Zhang G-Q, Zhu B, et al. Characterization of pilP, a gene required for twitching motility, pathogenicity, and biofilm formation of Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae RS-1. European Journal of Plant Pathology. 2012;134: 551–560.
  13. 13. Li B, Ibrahim M, Ge M, Cui Z, Sun G, Xu F, et al. Transcriptome analysis of Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae cultivated in vivo and co-culture with Burkholderia seminalis. Scientific reports. 2014;4: 5698. pmid:25027476
  14. 14. Tör M, Lotze MT, Holton N. Receptor-mediated signalling in plants: molecular patterns and programmes. Journal of experimental botany. 2009;60: 3645–54. pmid:19628572
  15. 15. Dodds PN, Rathjen JP. Plant immunity: towards an integrated view of plant-pathogen interactions. Nature reviews Genetics. Nature Publishing Group; 2010;11: 539–48.
  16. 16. Levitz SM. Interactions of Toll-like receptors with fungi. Microbes and infection/Institut Pasteur. 2004;6: 1351–5.
  17. 17. Zaragoza O, Rodrigues M. The Capsule of the Fungal Pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans. Adv Appl Microbiol. 2009;2164: 1–64.
  18. 18. Gómez-Ariza J, Campo S, Rufat M, Estopà M, Messeguer J, San Segundo B, et al. Sucrose-mediated priming of plant defense responses and broad-spectrum disease resistance by overexpression of the maize pathogenesis-related PRms protein in rice plants. Molecular plant-microbe interactions: MPMI. 2007;20: 832–42. pmid:17601170
  19. 19. Morkunas I, Marczak Ł, Stachowiak J, Stobiecki M. Sucrose-induced lupine defense against Fusarium oxysporum. Sucrose-stimulated accumulation of isoflavonoids as a defense response of lupine to Fusarium oxysporum. Plant physiology and biochemistry: PPB/Société française de physiologie végétale. 2005;43: 363–73.
  20. 20. Kwon Y, Oh JE, Noh H, Hong S-W, Bhoo SH, Lee H. The ethylene signaling pathway has a negative impact on sucrose-induced anthocyanin accumulation in Arabidopsis. Journal of plant research. 2011;124: 193–200. pmid:20514508
  21. 21. Martinelli F, Uratsu SL, Albrecht U, Reagan RL, Phu ML, Britton M, et al. Transcriptome profiling of citrus fruit response to huanglongbing disease. PloS one. 2012;7: e38039. pmid:22675433
  22. 22. Zerbino DR, Birney E. Velvet: Algorithms for de novo short read assembly using de Bruijn graphs. Genome Research. 2008;18: 821–829. pmid:18349386
  23. 23. Schulz MH, Zerbino DR, Vingron M, Birney E. Oases: Robust de novo RNA-seq assembly across the dynamic range of expression levels. Bioinformatics. 2012;28: 1086–1092. pmid:22368243
  24. 24. Schmieder R, Edwards R. Quality control and preprocessing of metagenomic datasets. Bioinformatics. 2011;27: 863–864. pmid:21278185
  25. 25. Haas BJ, Papanicolaou A, Yassour M, Grabherr M, Blood PD, Bowden J, et al. De novo transcript sequence reconstruction from RNA-seq using the Trinity platform for reference generation and analysis. Nature protocols. 2013;8: 1494–512. pmid:23845962
  26. 26. Grabherr MG, Haas BJ, Yassour M, Levin JZ, Thompson DA, Amit I, et al. Full-length transcriptome assembly from RNA-Seq data without a reference genome. Nature biotechnology. 2011;29: 644–52. pmid:21572440
  27. 27. Li B, Dewey CN. RSEM: accurate transcript quantification from RNA-Seq data with or without a reference genome. BMC bioinformatics. 2011;12: 323. pmid:21816040
  28. 28. Langmead B, Trapnell C, Pop M, Salzberg SL. Ultrafast and memory-efficient alignment of short DNA sequences to the human genome. Genome biology. 2009;10: R25. pmid:19261174
  29. 29. Mortazavi A, Williams BA, McCue K, Schaeffer L, Wold B. Mapping and quantifying mammalian transcriptomes by RNA-Seq. Nature methods. 2008;5: 621–628. pmid:18516045
  30. 30. Romualdi C, Bortoluzzi S, D’Alessi F, Danieli GA. IDEG6: a web tool for detection of differentially expressed genes in multiple tag sampling experiments. Physiological genomics. 2003;12: 159–62. pmid:12429865
  31. 31. Van Bel M, Proost S, Van Neste C, Deforce D, Van de Peer Y, Vandepoele K. TRAPID: an efficient online tool for the functional and comparative analysis of de novo RNA-Seq transcriptomes. Genome biology. 2013;14: R134. pmid:24330842
  32. 32. Van Bel M, Proost S, Wischnitzki E, Movahedi S, Scheerlinck C, Van de Peer Y, et al. Dissecting Plant Genomes with the PLAZA Comparative Genomics Platform. Plant Physiology. 2012;158: 590–600. pmid:22198273
  33. 33. Xie C, Mao X, Huang J, Ding Y, Wu J, Dong S, et al. KOBAS 2.0: A web server for annotation and identification of enriched pathways and diseases. Nucleic Acids Research. 2011;39: 316–322.
  34. 34. Chandna R, Augustine R, Bisht NC. Evaluation of candidate reference genes for gene expression normalization in Brassica juncea using real time quantitative RT-PCR. PloS one. 2012;7: e36918. pmid:22606308
  35. 35. Livak KJ, Schmittgen TD. Analysis of relative gene expression data using real-time quantitative PCR and the 2(-Delta Delta C(T)) Method. Methods (San Diego, Calif). 2001;25: 402–8.
  36. 36. Maccheroni W., Matsuoka S. Manejo das principais doenças da cana-de-açúcar. In: Segato Silvelena, Pinto Alexandre, Jendiroba Eloisa de N JC, editor. Atualização em produção de Cana-de-açúcar. Piracicaba-SP; 2006. pp. 239–280.
  37. 37. Vargas L, Santa Brígida AB, Mota Filho JP, de Carvalho TG, Rojas C a., Vaneechoutte D, et al. Drought Tolerance Conferred to Sugarcane by Association with Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus: A Transcriptomic View of Hormone Pathways. PLoS ONE. 2014;9: e114744. pmid:25489849
  38. 38. Boerner S, McGinnis KM. Computational identification and functional predictions of long noncoding RNA in Zea mays. PLoS ONE. 2012;7.
  39. 39. Zhang W, Han Z, Guo Q, Liu Y, Zheng Y, Wu F, et al. Identification of maize long non-coding RNAs responsive to drought stress. PLoS ONE. 2014;9.
  40. 40. Liu J, Jung C, Xu J, Wang H, Deng S, Bernad L, et al. Genome-wide analysis uncovers regulation of long intergenic noncoding RNAs in Arabidopsis. The Plant cell. 2012;24: 4333–45. pmid:23136377
  41. 41. Wel and Loeve . Isolation and Characterization of Thaumatin I and II, the Sweet-Tasting Proteins from Thaumatococcus daniellii Benth. European Journal of Biochemistry. 1972;31: 221–225. pmid:4647176
  42. 42. van Loon LC, Rep M, Pieterse CMJ. Significance of inducible defense-related proteins in infected plants. Annual review of phytopathology. 2006;44: 135–62. pmid:16602946
  43. 43. Liu JJ, Sturrock R, Ekramoddoullah AKM. The superfamily of thaumatin-like proteins: Its origin, evolution, and expression towards biological function. Plant Cell Reports. 2010;29: 419–436. pmid:20204373
  44. 44. Guo J, Zhao X, Wang H, Yu T, Miao Y, Zheng X. Expression of the LePR5 gene from cherry tomato fruit induced by Cryptococcus laurentii and the analysis of LePR5 protein antifungal activity. Postharvest Biology and Technology. 2016;111: 337–344.
  45. 45. Mackintosh CA, Lewis J, Radmer LE, Shin S, Heinen SJ, Smith LA, et al. Overexpression of defense response genes in transgenic wheat enhances resistance to Fusarium head blight. Plant Cell Reports. 2007;26: 479–488. pmid:17103001
  46. 46. Rout E, Nanda S, Joshi RK. Molecular characterization and heterologous expression of a pathogen induced PR5 gene from garlic (Allium sativum L.) conferring enhanced resistance to necrotrophic fungi. European Journal of Plant Pathology. 2016;144: 345–360.
  47. 47. Franco SDF, Baroni RM, Carazzolle MF, Teixeira PJPL, Reis O, Pereira GAG, et al. Genomic analyses and expression evaluation of thaumatin-like gene family in the cacao fungal pathogen Moniliophthora perniciosa. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. 2015;466: 629–636. pmid:26367180
  48. 48. Singh NK, Kumar KRR, Kumar D, Shukla P, Kirti PB. Characterization of a pathogen induced thaumatin-like protein gene AdTLP from Arachis diogoi, a wild peanut. PLoS ONE. 2013;8: 1–18.
  49. 49. Schestibratov KA, Dolgov S V. Transgenic strawberry plants expressing a thaumatin II gene demonstrate enhanced resistance to Botrytis cinerea. Scientia Horticulturae. 2005;106: 177–189.
  50. 50. Wang G, Wang C, Hou R, Zhou X, Li G, Zhang S, et al. The AMT1 arginine methyltransferase gene is important for plant infection and normal hyphal growth in Fusarium graminearum. PLoS ONE. 2012;7: 1–10.
  51. 51. Ding B, Wang G-L. Chromatin versus pathogens: the function of epigenetics in plant immunity. Frontiers in plant science. 2015;6: 675. pmid:26388882
  52. 52. Alvarez ME, Nota F, Cambiagno DA. Epigenetic control of plant immunity. Molecular Plant Pathology. 2010;11: 563–576. pmid:20618712
  53. 53. Cosio C, Dunand C. Specific functions of individual class III peroxidase genes. Journal of experimental botany. 2009;60: 391–408. pmid:19088338
  54. 54. Daudi Arsalan, Cheng Zhenyu, O’Brien Jose A., Mammarella Nicole K S, Ausubel Frederick M. B GP. The Apoplastic Oxidative Burst Peroxidase in Arabidopsis Is a Major Component of Pattern-Triggered Immunity. The Plant Cell. 2012;24: 275–287. pmid:22247251
  55. 55. Wen J, Lease K a., Walker JC. DVL, a novel class of small polypeptides: Overexpression alters Arabidopsis development. Plant Journal. 2004;37: 668–677. pmid:14871303
  56. 56. Nery FC, Passos DO, Garcia VS, Kobarg J. Ki-1/57 Interacts with RACK1 and Is a Substrate for the Phosphorylation by Phorbol 12-Myristate 13-Acetate-activated Protein Kinase C. Journal of Biological Chemistry. 2004;279: 11444–11455. pmid:14699138
  57. 57. Nery FC, Rui E, Kuniyoshi TM, Kobarg J. Evidence for the interaction of the regulatory protein Ki-1/57 with p53 and its interacting proteins. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. 2006;341: 847–855. pmid:16455055
  58. 58. Meier K, Brehm A. Chromatin regulation: How complex does it get? Epigenetics. 2014;9: 1485–1495. pmid:25482055
  59. 59. Larsson E, Sundström JF, Sitbon F, Von Arnold S. Expression of PaNAC01, a Picea abies CUP-SHAPED COTYLEDON orthologue, is regulated by polar auxin transport and associated with differentiation of the shoot apical meristem and formation of separated cotyledons. Annals of Botany. 2012;110: 923–934. pmid:22778149
  60. 60. Sablowski RWM, Meyerowitz EM. A homolog of NO APICAL MERISTEM is an immediate target of the floral homeotic genes APETALA3/PISTILLATA. Cell. 1998;92: 93–103. pmid:9489703
  61. 61. Xie Q, Guo H-S, Dallman G, Fang S, Weissman AM, Chua N-H. SINAT5 promotes ubiquitin-related degradation of NAC1 to attenuate auxin signals. Nature. 2002;419: 167–170. pmid:12226665
  62. 62. Jensen MK, Hagedorn PH, De Torres-Zabala M, Grant MR, Rung JH, Collinge DB, et al. Transcriptional regulation by an NAC (NAM-ATAF1,2-CUC2) transcription factor attenuates ABA signalling for efficient basal defence towards Blumeria graminis f. sp. hordei in Arabidopsis. Plant Journal. 2008;56: 867–880. pmid:18694460
  63. 63. Valdivia ER, Herrera MT, Gianzo C, Fidalgo J, Revilla G, Zarra I, et al. Regulation of secondary wall synthesis and cell death by NAC transcription factors in the monocot Brachypodium distachyon. Journal of Experimental Botany. 2013;64: 1333–1343. pmid:23386682
  64. 64. Yoon J, Choi H, An G. Roles of lignin biosynthesis and regulatory genes in plant development. Journal of Integrative Plant Biology. 2015;57: 902–912. pmid:26297385
  65. 65. Shao H, Wang H, Tang X. NAC transcription factors in plant multiple abiotic stress responses: progress and prospects. Frontiers in plant science. 2015;6: 902. pmid:26579152
  66. 66. Pascual MB, Cánovas FM, Ávila C. The NAC transcription factor family in maritime pine (Pinus Pinaster): molecular regulation of two genes involved in stress responses. BMC plant biology. BMC Plant Biology; 2015;15: 254. pmid:26500018
  67. 67. Liu B, Ouyang Z, Zhang Y, Li X, Hong Y, Huang L, et al. Tomato NAC transcription factor SlSRN1 positively regulates defense response against biotic stress but negatively regulates abiotic stress response. PLoS ONE. 2014;9.
  68. 68. Tegeder M. Transporters for amino acids in plant cells: Some functions and many unknowns. Current Opinion in Plant Biology. Elsevier Ltd; 2012;15: 315–321.
  69. 69. Pratelli R, Pilot G. Regulation of amino acid metabolic enzymes and transporters in plants. Journal of Experimental Botany. 2014;65: 5535–5556. pmid:25114014
  70. 70. Rico A, Preston GM. Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 uses constitutive and apoplast-induced nutrient assimilation pathways to catabolize nutrients that are abundant in the tomato apoplast. Molecular plant-microbe interactions: MPMI. 2008;21: 269–282. pmid:18184070
  71. 71. Kotchoni SO, Kuhns C, Ditzer A, Kirch HH, Bartels D. Over-expression of different aldehyde dehydrogenase genes in Arabidopsis thaliana confers tolerance to abiotic stress and protects plants against lipid peroxidation and oxidative stress. Plant, Cell and Environment. 2006;29: 1033–1048. pmid:17080931
  72. 72. Sunkar R, Bartels D, Kirch H-H. Overexpression of a stress-inducible aldehyde dehydrogenase gene from Arabidopsis thaliana in transgenic plants improves stress tolerance. The Plant journal: for cell and molecular biology. 2003;35: 452–464.
  73. 73. Huang W, Ma X, Wang Q, Gao Y, Xue Y, Niu X, et al. Significant improvement of stress tolerance in tobacco plants by overexpressing a stress-responsive aldehyde dehydrogenase gene from maize (Zea mays). Plant Molecular Biology. 2008;68: 451–463. pmid:18688729
  74. 74. Kim NH, Hwang BK. Pepper aldehyde dehydrogenase CaALDH1 interacts with Xanthomonas effector AvrBsT and promotes effectortriggered cell death and defence responses. Journal of Experimental Botany. 2015;66: 3367–3380. pmid:25873668
  75. 75. Zvereva AS, Pooggin MM. Silencing and innate immunity in plant defense against viral and non-viral pathogens. Viruses. 2012;4: 2578–97. pmid:23202495
  76. 76. Ashburner M, Ball CA, Blake JA, Botstein D, Butler H, Cherry JM, Davis AP, Dolinski K, Dwight SS, Eppig JT, Harris MA, Hill DP, Issel-Tarver L, Kasarskis A, Lewis S, Matese JC, Richardson JE, Ringwald M, Rubin GMS G. The Gene Ontology (GO) project in 2006. Nucleic acids research. 2006;34: D322–6. pmid:16381878
  77. 77. Maeda H, Dudareva N. The Shikimate Pathway and Aromatic Amino Acid Biosynthesis in Plants. Annu Rev Plant Biol. 2012;63: 73–105. pmid:22554242
  78. 78. Vogt T. Phenylpropanoid biosynthesis. Molecular Plant. The Author. All rights reserved.; 2010;3: 2–20.
  79. 79. Hiruma K, Fukunaga S, Bednarek P, Pislewska-Bednarek M, Watanabe S, Narusaka Y, et al. Glutathione and tryptophan metabolism are required for Arabidopsis immunity during the hypersensitive response to hemibiotrophs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2013;110: 9589–94. pmid:23696664
  80. 80. Patra B, Schluttenhofer C, Wu Y, Pattanaik S, Yuan L. Transcriptional regulation of secondary metabolite biosynthesis in plants. Biochimica et biophysica acta. Elsevier B.V.; 2013;1829: 1236–47.
  81. 81. Dixon RA, Achnine L, Kota P, Liu CJ, Reddy MSS, Wang L. The phenylpropanoid pathway and plant defence—A genomics perspective. Molecular Plant Pathology. 2002;3: 371–390. pmid:20569344
  82. 82. Naoumkina M a, Zhao Q, Gallego-Giraldo L, Dai X, Zhao PX, Dixon R a. Genome-wide analysis of phenylpropanoid defence pathways. Molecular plant pathology. 2010;11: 829–46. pmid:21029326
  83. 83. Nakabayashi R, Yonekura-Sakakibara K, Urano K, Suzuki M, Yamada Y, Nishizawa T, et al. Enhancement of oxidative and drought tolerance in Arabidopsis by overaccumulation of antioxidant flavonoids. Plant Journal. 2014;77: 367–379. pmid:24274116
  84. 84. Petrussa E, Braidot E, Zancani M, Peresson C, Bertolini A, Patui S, et al. Plant flavonoids-biosynthesis, transport and involvement in stress responses. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2013;14: 14950–14973. pmid:23867610
  85. 85. Patrick JW, Botha FC, Birch RG. Metabolic engineering of sugars and simple sugar derivatives in plants. Plant biotechnology journal. 2013;11: 142–56. pmid:23043616
  86. 86. Bolouri Moghaddam MR V den EW. Sugars and plant innate immunity. Journal of Experimental Botany. 2012;63: 3989–3998. pmid:22553288
  87. 87. Denancé N, Sánchez-Vallet A, Goffner D, Molina A. Disease resistance or growth: the role of plant hormones in balancing immune responses and fitness costs. Frontiers in plant science. 2013;4: 155. pmid:23745126
  88. 88. Huot B, Yao J, Montgomery BL, He SY. Growth-Defense Tradeoffs in Plants: A Balancing Act to Optimize Fitness. Molecular plant. 2014; 1267–1287. pmid:24777989
  89. 89. Robert-Seilaniantz A, Grant M, Jones JDG. Hormone crosstalk in plant disease and defense: more than just jasmonate-salicylate antagonism. Annual review of phytopathology. 2011;49: 317–43. pmid:21663438
  90. 90. Broekaert WF, Delaure SL, De Bolle MFC, Cammuel BPA. The role of ethylene in host-pathoven interactions. Annual Review of Phytopathology. 2006;44: 393–416. pmid:16602950
  91. 91. Agrawal Ganesh Kumar, Rakwal Randeep J N-S. Differential induction of three pathogenesis-related genes, PR10, PR1b and PR5 by the ethylene generator ethephon under light and dark in rice (Oryza sativa L.) seedlings. J Plant Physiol. 2001;158: 133–137. Available: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176161704700188
  92. 92. Helliwell EE, Wang Q, Yang Y. Transgenic rice with inducible ethylene production exhibits broad-spectrum disease resistance to the fungal pathogens Magnaporthe oryzae and Rhizoctonia solani. Plant biotechnology journal. 2013;11: 33–42. pmid:23031077
  93. 93. Shen X, Liu H, Yuan B, Li X, Xu C, Wang S. OsEDR1 negatively regulates rice bacterial resistance via activation of ethylene biosynthesis. Plant, cell & environment. 2011;34: 179–91.
  94. 94. Ohme-Takagi Masaru S H. Ethylene-lnducible DNA Binding Proteins That lnteract with an Ethylene-Responsive Element. The Plant cell. 1995;7: 173–182. Available: http://www.plantcell.org/content/7/2/173.long pmid:7756828
  95. 95. Pieterse CMJ, Van der Does D, Zamioudis C, Leon-Reyes A, Van Wees SCM. Hormonal modulation of plant immunity. Annual review of cell and developmental biology. 2012;28: 489–521. pmid:22559264
  96. 96. Yang D-L, Yang Y, He Z. Roles of plant hormones and their interplay in rice immunity. Molecular plant. 2013;6: 675–85. pmid:23589608
  97. 97. Wasternack C, Hause B. Jasmonates: biosynthesis, perception, signal transduction and action in plant stress response, growth and development. An update to the 2007 review in Annals of Botany. Annals of botany. 2013;111: 1021–58. pmid:23558912
  98. 98. Durrant WE, Dong X. Systemic acquired resistance. Annual review of phytopathology. 2004;42: 185–209. pmid:15283665
  99. 99. Rojas CM, Senthil-Kumar M, Tzin V, Mysore KS. Regulation of primary plant metabolism during plant-pathogen interactions and its contribution to plant defense. Frontiers in plant science. 2014;5: 17. pmid:24575102
  100. 100. Berger S, Sinha AK, Roitsch T. Plant physiology meets phytopathology: plant primary metabolism and plant-pathogen interactions. Journal of experimental botany. 2007;58: 4019–26. pmid:18182420
  101. 101. Kangasjärvi S, Neukermans J, Li S, Aro EM, Noctor G. Photosynthesis, photorespiration, and light signalling in defence responses. Journal of Experimental Botany. 2012;63: 1619–1636. pmid:22282535
  102. 102. Bohman S, Wang M, Dixelius C. Arabidopsis thaliana-derived resistance against Leptosphaeria maculans in a Brassica napus genomic background. Theoretical and Applied Genetics. 2002;105: 498–504. pmid:12582497
  103. 103. Schäfer P, Hückelhoven R, Kogel K-H. The white barley mutant albostrians shows a supersusceptible but symptomless interaction phenotype with the hemibiotrophic fungus Bipolaris sorokiniana. Molecular plant-microbe interactions: MPMI. 2004;17: 366–73. pmid:15077669
  104. 104. Rojas CM, Senthil-Kumar M, Wang K, Ryu C-M, Kaundal a., Mysore KS. Glycolate Oxidase Modulates Reactive Oxygen Species-Mediated Signal Transduction during Nonhost Resistance in Nicotiana benthamiana and Arabidopsis. The Plant Cell. 2012;24: 336–352. pmid:22286136
  105. 105. Berger S, Papadopoulos M, Schreiber U, Kaiser W, Roitsch T. Complex regulation of gene expression, photosynthesis and sugar levels by pathogen infection in tomato. Physiologia Plantarum. 2004;122: 419–428.
  106. 106. Scharte J, Schön H, Weis E. Photosynthesis and carbohydrate metabolism in tobacco leaves during an incompatible interaction with Phytophthora nicotianae. Plant, Cell and Environment. 2005;28: 1421–1435. Available: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-3040.2005.01380.x/pdf
  107. 107. Truman W, de Zabala MT, Grant M. Type III effectors orchestrate a complex interplay between transcriptional networks to modify basal defence responses during pathogenesis and resistance. The Plant journal: for cell and molecular biology. 2006;46: 14–33.
  108. 108. Bonfig KB, Schreiber U, Gabler A, Roitsch T, Berger S. Infection with virulent and avirulent P. syringae strains differentially affects photosynthesis and sink metabolism in Arabidopsis leaves. Planta. 2006;225: 1–12. pmid:16807755
  109. 109. Essmann J, Schmitz-Thom I, Schön H, Sonnewald S, Weis E, Scharte J. RNA interference-mediated repression of cell wall invertase impairs defense in source leaves of tobacco. Plant physiology. 2008;147: 1288–99. pmid:18502974
  110. 110. Herbers K, Meuwly P, Frommer WB, Metraux JP S U. Systemic Acquired Resistance Mediated by the Ectopic Expression of Invertase: Possible Hexose Sensing in the Secretory Pathway. The Plant cell. 1996;8: 793–803. Available: http://www.plantcell.org/content/8/5/793.long pmid:12239401
  111. 111. Schaarschmidt S, Roitsch T, Hause B. arbuscular mycorrhiza induces gene expression of the apoplastic invertase LIN6 in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) roots. Journal of experimental botany. 2006;57: 4015–23. pmid:17050639
  112. 112. Kocal N, Sonnewald U, Sonnewald S. Cell wall-bound invertase limits sucrose export and is involved in symptom development and inhibition of photosynthesis during compatible interaction between tomato and Xanthomonas campestris pv vesicatoria. Plant physiology. 2008;148: 1523–36. pmid:18784281
  113. 113. Sun L, Yang D, Kong Y, Chen Y, Li X-Z, Zeng L-J, et al. Sugar homeostasis mediated by cell wall invertase GRAIN INCOMPLETE FILLING 1 (GIF1) plays a role in pre-existing and induced defence in rice. Molecular plant pathology. 2014;15: 161–73. pmid:24118770
  114. 114. Bolton MD. Primary metabolism and plant defense—fuel for the fire. Molecular plant-microbe interactions: MPMI. 2009;22: 487–97. pmid:19348567
  115. 115. Muchembled J, Sahraoui AL-H, Grandmougin-Ferjani A, Sancholle M. Changes in lipid composition of Blumeria graminis f.sp. tritici conidia produced on wheat leaves treated with heptanoyl salicylic acid. Phytochemistry. 2006;67: 1104–9. pmid:16647727
  116. 116. Renard-Merlier D, Randoux B, Nowak E, Farcy F, Durand R, Reignault P. Iodus 40, salicylic acid, heptanoyl salicylic acid and trehalose exhibit different efficacies and defence targets during a wheat/powdery mildew interaction. Phytochemistry. 2007;68: 1156–64. pmid:17399750
  117. 117. Park C-J, Caddell DF, Ronald PC. Protein phosphorylation in plant immunity: insights into the regulation of pattern recognition receptor-mediated signaling. Frontiers in plant science. 2012;3: 177. pmid:22876255
  118. 118. Li L, Yu Y, Zhou Z, Zhou J-M. Plant pattern-recognition receptors controlling innate immunity. Science China Life Sciences. 2016;
  119. 119. Macho AP, Zipfel C. Plant PRRs and the activation of innate immune signaling. Molecular cell. Elsevier Inc.; 2014;54: 263–72.
  120. 120. Osakabe Y, Yamaguchi-Shinozaki K, Shinozaki K, Tran L-SP. Sensing the environment: key roles of membrane-localized kinases in plant perception and response to abiotic stress. Journal of experimental botany. 2013;64: 445–58. pmid:23307915
  121. 121. Wu Y, Zhou J-M. Receptor-like kinases in plant innate immunity. Journal of integrative plant biology. 2013;55: 1271–86. pmid:24308571
  122. 122. Albrecht C, Russinova E, Kemmerling B, Kwaaitaal M, de Vries SC. Arabidopsis SOMATIC EMBRYOGENESIS RECEPTOR KINASE proteins serve brassinosteroid-dependent and -independent signaling pathways. Plant physiology. 2008;148: 611–619. pmid:18667726
  123. 123. Lewis Michael W., Leslie Michelle E., Fulcher Emilee H., Darnielle Lalitree Healy P, Youn Ji-Young and L SJ. The SERK1 receptor-like kinase regulates organ separation in Arabidopsis flowers. Plant J. 2010;62: 817–828. pmid:20230490
  124. 124. Roux M, Schwessinger B, Albrecht C, Chinchilla D, Jones A, Holton N, et al. The Arabidopsis leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinases BAK1/SERK3 and BKK1/SERK4 are required for innate immunity to hemibiotrophic and biotrophic pathogens. The Plant cell. 2011;23: 2440–55. pmid:21693696
  125. 125. Gou X, Yin H, He K, Du J, Yi J, Xu S, et al. Genetic evidence for an indispensable role of somatic embryogenesis receptor kinases in brassinosteroid signaling. PLoS genetics. 2012;8: e1002452. pmid:22253607
  126. 126. Chinchilla D, Zipfel C, Robatzek S, Kemmerling B, Nürnberger T, Jones JDG, et al. A flagellin-induced complex of the receptor FLS2 and BAK1 initiates plant defence. Nature. 2007;448: 497–500. pmid:17625569
  127. 127. Fradin EF, Abd-El-Haliem A, Masini L, van den Berg GCM, Joosten MH a J, Thomma BPHJ. Interfamily transfer of tomato Ve1 mediates Verticillium resistance in Arabidopsis. Plant physiology. 2011;156: 2255–2265. pmid:21617027
  128. 128. Zhang W, Fraiture M, Kolb D, Löffelhardt B, Desaki Y, Freddy FG, et al. Arabidopsis receptor-like protein30 and receptor-like kinase suppressor of BIR1-1/EVERSHED mediate innate immunity to necrotrophic fungi. The Plant cell. 2013;25: 4227–4241. pmid:24104566
  129. 129. Postma J, Liebrand TWH, Bi G, Evrard A, Bye RR, Mbengue M, et al. Avr4 promotes Cf-4 receptor-like protein association with the BAK1/SERK3 receptor-like kinase to initiate receptor endocytosis and plant immunity. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling. 2013;53: 627–642.
  130. 130. Jordá L, Sopeña-Torres S, Escudero V, Nuñez-Corcuera B, Delgado-Cerezo M, Torii KU, et al. ERECTA and BAK1 receptor like kinases interact to regulate immune responses in Arabidopsis. Frontiers in Plant Science. 2016;7: 897. pmid:27446127
  131. 131. Yeh Y-H, Panzeri D, Kadota Y, Huang Y-C, Huang P-Y, Tao C-N, et al. The Arabidopsis Malectin-Like/LRR-RLK IOS1 is Critical for BAK1-Dependent and BAK1-Independent Pattern-Triggered Immunity [Internet]. The Plant Cell. 2016.
  132. 132. Wrzaczek M, Brosché M, Salojärvi J, Kangasjärvi S, Idänheimo N, Mersmann S, et al. Transcriptional regulation of the CRK/DUF26 group of Receptor-like protein kinases by ozone and plant hormones in Arabidopsis. 2010;1: 1–19.
  133. 133. Lu K, Liang S, Wu Z, Bi C, Yu Y-T, Ma Y, et al. Overexpression of an Arabidopsis cysteine-rich receptor-like protein kinase, CRK5, enhances abscisic acid sensitivity and confers drought tolerance. Journal of Experimental Botany. 2016; erw266.
  134. 134. Ederli L, Madeo L, Calderini O, Gehring C, Moretti C, Buonaurio R, et al. The Arabidopsis thaliana cysteine-rich receptor-like kinase CRK20 modulates host responses to Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 infection. Journal of plant physiology. Elsevier GmbH.; 2011;168: 1784–94.
  135. 135. Chern M, Xu Q, Bart RS, Bai W, Ruan D, Sze-To WH, et al. A Genetic Screen Identifies a Requirement for Cysteine-Rich–Receptor-Like Kinases in Rice NH1 (OsNPR1)-Mediated Immunity. PLOS Genetics. 2016;12: e1006049. pmid:27176732
  136. 136. Zhang X, Yang G, Shi R, Han X, Qi L, Wang R, et al. Arabidopsis cysteine-rich receptor-like kinase 45 functions in the responses to abscisic acid and abiotic stresses. Plant physiology and biochemistry: PPB / Société française de physiologie végétale. Elsevier Masson SAS; 2013;67: 189–98.
  137. 137. Acharya BR, Raina S, Maqbool SB, Jagadeeswaran G, Mosher SL, Appel HM, et al. Overexpression of CRK13, an Arabidopsis cysteine-rich receptor-like kinase, results in enhanced resistance to Pseudomonas syringae. The Plant journal: for cell and molecular biology. 2007;50: 488–99.
  138. 138. Czernic P, Visser B, Sun W, Savoure A, Deslandes L, Marco Y, et al. Characterization of an Arabidopsis thaliana receptor-like protein kinase gene activated by oxidative stress and pathogen attack. 1999;18: 321–327.
  139. 139. Idänheimo N, Gauthier A, Salojärvi J, Siligato R, Brosché M, Kollist H, et al. The Arabidopsis thaliana cysteine-rich receptor-like kinases CRK6 and CRK7 protect against apoplastic oxidative stress. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. 2014;445: 457–462. pmid:24530916
  140. 140. Torres MA, Dangl JL, Jones JDG. Arabidopsis gp91phox homologues AtrbohD and AtrbohF are required for accumulation of reactive oxygen intermediates in the plant defense response. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2002;99: 517–522.
  141. 141. Gechev TS, Hille J. Hydrogen peroxide as a signal controlling plant programmed cell death. Journal of Cell Biology. 2005;168: 17–20. pmid:15631987
  142. 142. Kärkönen A, Kuchitsu K. Reactive oxygen species in cell wall metabolism and development in plants. Phytochemistry. 2015;112: 22–32. pmid:25446232
  143. 143. Camejo D, Guzmán-Cedeño Á, Moreno A. Reactive oxygen species, essential molecules, during plant-pathogen interactions. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry. 2016;103: 10–23. pmid:26950921
  144. 144. Jones JDG, Dangl JL. The plant immune system. Nature. 2006;444: 323–9. pmid:17108957
  145. 145. Spoel SH, Dong X. How do plants achieve immunity? Defence without specialized immune cells. Nature Reviews Immunology. Nature Publishing Group; 2012;12: 89–100.
  146. 146. Isaacs M, Carella P, Faubert J, Rose JKC, Cameron RK. Orthology Analysis and In Vivo Complementation Studies to Elucidate the Role of DIR1 during Systemic Acquired Resistance in Arabidopsis thaliana and Cucumis sativus. Frontiers in plant science. 2016;7: 566. pmid:27200039
  147. 147. Liu P-P, von Dahl CC, Park S-W, Klessig DF. Interconnection between methyl salicylate and lipid-based long-distance signaling during the development of systemic acquired resistance in Arabidopsis and tobacco. Plant physiology. 2011;155: 1762–1768. pmid:21311035
  148. 148. Maldonado AM, Doerner P, Dixon RA, Lamb CJ C R. A putative lipid transfer protein involved in systemic resistance signalling in Arabidopsis. Nature. 2002;419: 399–403. pmid:12353036
  149. 149. Champigny MJ, Isaacs M, Carella P, Faubert J, Fobert PR, Cameron RK. Long distance movement of DIR1 and investigation of the role of DIR1-like during systemic acquired resistance in Arabidopsis. Frontiers in plant science. 2013;4: 230. pmid:23847635
  150. 150. Sels J, Mathys J, De Coninck BM a, Cammue BP a, De Bolle MFC. Plant pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins: a focus on PR peptides. Plant physiology and biochemistry: PPB/Société française de physiologie végétale. 2008;46: 941–50.
  151. 151. Fu ZQ, Dong X. Systemic acquired resistance: turning local infection into global defense. Annual review of plant biology. 2013;64: 839–63. pmid:23373699