Analysis of the chromosomal clustering of Fusarium-responsive wheat genes uncovers new players in the defence against head blight disease.

ABSTRACT: There is increasing evidence that some functionally related, co-expressed genes cluster within eukaryotic genomes. We present a novel pipeline that delineates such eukaryotic gene clusters. Using this tool for bread wheat, we uncovered 44 clusters of genes that are responsive to the fungal pathogen Fusarium graminearum. As expected, these Fusarium-responsive gene clusters (FRGCs) included metabolic gene clusters, many of which are associated with disease resistance, but hitherto not described for wheat. However, the majority of the FRGCs are non-metabolic, many of which contain clusters of paralogues, including those implicated in plant disease responses, such as glutathione transferases, MAP kinases, and germin-like proteins. 20 of the FRGCs encode nonhomologous, non-metabolic genes (incl

SUBMITTER: Perochon A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8018971 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature