Transcriptome analysis of Htn1 mediated resistance against E .turcium

Wall associated kinases (WAKs) have recently been identified as major components of fungal and bacterial disease resistance in several cereal crop species. However, the molecular mechanisms of WAK-mediated resistance remain largely unknown. Here, we applied the RNAseq approach to investigate the function of the maize gene ZmWAK-RLK1 (Htn1) that confers quantitative resistance to northern corn leaf blight (NCLB) caused by the hemibiotrophic fungal pathogen Exserohilum turcicum. A transcriptome analysis of near-isogenic lines (NILs) differing for ZmWAK-RLK1 revealed that several genes involved in the biosynthesis of the secondary metabolites benzoxazinoids (BXDs) were differentially expressed in the presence of ZmWAK-RLK1. Overall design: Two maize genotypes (w22, B37) containing or not the gene Htn1, were infected or not with E .turcium. Three biological replicates of each interaction were collected. Infected samples were taken at four different time points (0h, 9h, 3d and 10d after inocluation). In total 48 samples

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Yang P, Praz C, Li B, Singla J, Robert CAM, Kessel B, Scheuermann D, Lüthi L, Ouzunova M, Erb M, Krattinger SG, Keller B