Project description:Diseases of poplar caused by the fungal pathogen Sphaerulina musiva and related species are of growing concern, particular with the increasing interest in intensive popluliculture to meet increasing energy demands. S. musiva is able to cause infection on leaves, resulting in defoliation and canker formation on stems. To gain a greater understanding of the different responses of poplar species to infection with their natural Sphaerulina species, RNA-seq was conducted on leaves of Populus deltoides, P. balsamifera and P. tremuloides infected with S. musiva, S. populicola and a new undescribed species Ston1, respectively. Progression of disease symptoms, pathogen growth and host response were detected. Through the time course of infection, different and species-specific metabolic pathways were activated. In all three species, genes associated with growth and development were down-regulated, while genes involved the phenylpropanoid, terpenoid and flavonoid biosynthesis were up-regulated. Poplar defensive genes were expressed early in P. balsamifera and P. tremuloides, but delayed in P. deltoides, which correlated with the rate of disease symptoms development. This data gives an insight into the large differences in timing and expression of genes between poplar species being attacked with their native associated Sphaerulina pathogen.
Project description:Diseases of poplar caused by the fungal pathogen Sphaerulina musiva and related species are of growing concern, particular with the increasing interest in intensive popluliculture to meet increasing energy demands. S. musiva is able to cause infection on leaves, resulting in defoliation and canker formation on stems. To gain a greater understanding of the different responses of poplar species to infection with their natural Sphaerulina species, RNA-seq was conducted on leaves of Populus deltoides, P. balsamifera and P. tremuloides infected with S. musiva, S. populicola and a new undescribed species Ston1, respectively. Progression of disease symptoms, pathogen growth and host response were detected. Through the time course of infection, different and species-specific metabolic pathways were activated. In all three species, genes associated with growth and development were down-regulated, while genes involved the phenylpropanoid, terpenoid and flavonoid biosynthesis were up-regulated. Poplar defensive genes were expressed early in P. balsamifera and P. tremuloides, but delayed in P. deltoides, which correlated with the rate of disease symptoms development. This data gives an insight into the large differences in timing and expression of genes between poplar species being attacked with their native associated Sphaerulina pathogen. RNA-seq was conducted on leaves of Populus deltoides, P. balsamifera and P. tremuloides infected with S. musiva, S. populicola and a new undescribed species Ston1, respectively.
Project description:Gray leaf spot (GLS) disease of maize can be caused by either of two sibling fungal species Cercospora zeina or Cercospora zeae-maydis. These species differ in geographical distribution, for example to date only C. zeina is associated with GLS in African countries, such as South Africa. Maize inbred line B73, which is susceptible to GLS, was planted in the field, and subjected to natural infection with C. zeina. Samples were collected from lower leaves with substantial GLS lesions and younger upper leaves of the same plants with very few immature GLS lesions. The first aim of the experiment was to determine which maize genes are induced in response to C. zeina infection. The second aim was to identify C. zeina genes expressed in planta during a compatible interaction. The third aim was to determine whether the C. zeina cercosporin biosynthetic (CTB) genes are expressed in planta. C. zeina fails to produce cercosporin in vitro in contrast to C. zeae-maydis. Cercosporin is a phytotoxin that is thought to play a role in pathogenicity of several Cercospora spp., however its role in the pathogenicity strategy of C. zeina is currently under investigation.
Project description:Expression of defense response-related transcripts could be affected upon leaf wounding such as after excision of leaf disks. In this experiment, transcripts were isolated from whole leaves and 5-cm2 excised leaf disks samples from interaction assays between leaves of the 'Beaupré' poplar cultivar (Poplus trichocarpa x Poplus deltoides) and virulent (98AG31, compatible interaction) and avirulent (93ID6, incompatible interaction) urediniospores of Melampsora larici-populina, the fungus responsible for the foliar rust disease in poplar. For each type of interaction, three samples were collected in a time-course series (18, 21 and 24 hpi for strain 93ID6, and 18, 24 and 48 hpi for strain 98AG31). Both leaf disks and whole leaves were inoculated in strictly similar conditions, so differential transcript expression is likely attributable to the wounding effect in leaf disks. The aim of this study is to identify genes that are induced by wounding in leaf disks compared with whole leaves. For this purpose, cDNA templates were used for hybridization on poplar oligoarrays.
Project description:Recent spatial transcriptomics experiments utilize slides containing thousands of spots with spot-specific barcodes that bind mRNA. Ideally, unique molecular identifiers at a spot measure spot-specific expression, but this is often not the case due to bleed from nearby spots, an artifact we refer to as spot swapping. We conduct chimeric experiments to evaluate the spot swapping effect in 10x Visium spatial transcriptomics protocol. We propose SpotClean to adjust for spot swapping and, in doing so, to increase the sensitivity and precision with which downstream analyses are conducted.