Project description:Upon virus infections, the transcriptomic profile of host plants markedly changes. The rapid and comprehensive transcriptional reprogramming is critical to ward off virus attack. To learn more about transcriptional reprogramming in tobamovirus-infected pepper leaves, we carried out transcriptome-wide RNA-Seq analyses of pepper leaves following Obuda pepper virus (ObPV) and Pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV)-inoculations.
Project description:Background: Melatonin is considered to be a polyfunctional master regulator in animals and higher plants. Exogenous melatonin inhibits plant infection by multiple diseases; however, the role of melatonin in cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV) infection remains unknown. Results: In this study, we demonstrated that exogenous melatonin treatment can effectively control CGMMV infection. The greatest control effect was achieved by 3 days of root irrigation at a melatonin concentration of 50 µM. Exogenous melatonin showed preventive and therapeutic effects against CGMMV infection at early stage in tobacco and cucumber. We utilized RNA sequencing technology to compare the expression profiles of mock-inoculated, CGMMV-infected, and melatonin+CGMMV-infected tobacco leaves. Defense-related gene CRISP1 was specifically upregulated in response to melatonin, but not to salicylic acid (SA). Silencing CRISP1 enhanced the preventive effects of melatonin on CGMMV infection, but had no effect on CGMMV infection. We also found exogenous melatonin has preventive effects against another Tobamovirus, pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV) infection. Conclusions: Together, these results indicate that exogenous melatonin controls two Tobamovirus infection and inhibition of CRISP1 enhanced melatonin control effects against CGMMV infection, which may lead to the development of a novel melatonin treatment for Tobamovirus control.
