Bioinformatic analysis of RNA seq published data on defense pathways involved in the Citrus - Candidatus Liberibacter spp. interaction

MACHADO, RODRIGO; MOSCHEN, SEBASTIAN; DI RIENZO, JULIO ALEJANDRO; GONZALEZ, SERGIO ALEJANDRO; BURDYN, LOURDES; FERNANDEZ, PAULA; HOPP, HORACIO ESTEBAN; CONTI, GABRIELA

Virtual

Congreso; 2021 APS Caribbean Division Meeting; 2021

The American Phytopathological Society

HuangLongBing (HLB) is the most devastating citrus disease worldwide. It is caused by Candidatus Liberibacter, a phloem biotrophic bacterium. The species Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, has been detected in Argentina. As indicated by the prefix Candidatus, these are uncultured bacteria, which makes it difficult to understand the mechanisms of pathogenicity and study the defense responses. Symptoms of HLB include systemic alterations in physiology and development and, at late stages of infection, plant death. In the present study, a set of biological databases from time-course RNA sequencing studies were analyzed in an integrated manner. The differential gene expression profiles in different citrus varieties and infection stages showed that the progression of the disease results in physiological changes such as (A) alterations in the crosstalk of phytohormones involved in development and immunity (SA, JA, brassinosteroids, etc.), (B) carbohydrate imbalance related to the interruption of the source-sink relation, (C) fluctuation in the rapid activation of detoxification pathways (particularly GSTs). This integrated bioinformatics analysis, based on available datasets, allowed us to identify fluctuations in gene expression in different metabolic pathways and transcripts involved in defense activation that may be useful for designing alternative control strategies.