Project description:This experiment is to assess the changes of maize genes expression in response to Fusarium graminearum stains wild-type PH-1 and Δcfem1 mutant. F. graminearum is the major casual fungal pathogen of Gibberella stalk rot on maize.
Project description:Microbial communities in the rhizosphere make significant contributions to crop health and nutrient cycling. However, their ability to perform important biogeochemical processes remains uncharacterized. Important functional genes, which characterize the rhizosphere microbial community, were identified to understand metabolic capabilities in the maize rhizosphere using GeoChip 3.0-based functional gene array method.
Project description:The biotrophic fungal pathogen Ustilago maydis cause common smut in maize, and lead to gall formation on all aerial organs, especially on maize kernel thus reduce yield. The interaction of U. maydis with maize is a well-established model to study the interaction between maize and biotrophic pathogen. U. maydis infection could activate host immune responses including: ROS accumulation, protease activation, salicylic acid signaling. U. maydis employ several strategies to overcome maize immune response, thus initial the biotrophic interaction with host. It has been suggested that genetic factors of maize host affected the disease severity of U. maydis infection, here we investigated the transcriptome profile of resistance and susceptible maize lines upon U. maydis infection, thus propose candidate maize genes involved in the defense response in maize to corn smut cause by U. maydis.
Project description:Fusarium graminearum (teleomorph Gibberella zeae) is a prominent pathogen that infects major cereal crops, such as wheat, barley, and maize. To dissect molecular mechanisms of small non-coding RNA-mediated gene regulation during ascospore production, we compared small RNA transcriptomes of fungal cultures harvested from F. graminearum wild-type strain Z-3639 and RNAi component mutants at 5 days after sexual induction.
Project description:Southern corn rust (SCR) is one of destructive diseases in maize caused by Puccinia polysora Undrew. (P. polysara), widely occurring in warm-temperate and tropical regions globally. To identify candidate SCR resistance-related proteins and understand the molecular mechanism underlaying the maize and P. polysara interaction, comparative proteomic analysis of susceptible and resistance maize lines was performed. A total of 6,612 proteins were successfully identified using an iTRAQ-based proteomic approach. Fold changes and statistical analysis demonstrated that 687 proteins increased and 802 proteins decreased in the resistant line, while 571 increased and 464 decreased in the susceptible line. One remorin protein, namely ZmREM1.3 (B4G1B0), was significantly induced by SCR in the resistant genotype, while decreased in susceptible genotype after P. polysara infection. Plant-specific remorin proteins have been shown to play important roles during microbial infection and plant signaling processes. Transgenic analysis showed that overexpression of ZmREM1.3 in maize confers enhanced resistance to the biotrophic fungal pathogen SCR. Upon pathogen challenge, the ZmREM1.3-overexpressing plants accumulated higher levels of defense hormones, SA and JA. Moreover, stronger induction of defense gene expression was also observed in ZmREM1.3-overexpressing maize plants in response to SCR infection. Taken together, our results support that ZmREM1.3 plays a positive role in regulating the maize defense against SCR likely through SA/JA-mediated defense signaling pathways. This is the first attempt for large scale analysis of the molecular mechanisms underlaying the maize and P. polysara interaction at the proteomic level, and the first evidence for remorin protein family in resistant to fungal disease.
Project description:The goal of this study was to optimize protein extraction methods to study root-associated bacteria in maize. For this we inoculated sterile maize plants with a synthetic community composed of seven different bacteria (Ben Niu et al. PNAS 2017, vol 114, n 12). Then, we extracted proteins from maize roots using eight different protein extraction methods in triplicates. These methods were a combination of different extraction buffers (SDS or Triton-based) and mechanical disruption methods (bead-beating, N2 grinding, glass homogenizer and freeze-thaw cycles). We found that vortexing maize roots with glass beads in PBS yielded the highest numbers of microbial protein identification.