向日葵锈病是国内外向日葵栽培地区普遍发生的病害。培育抗病品种是控制该病害最经济有效的途径。然而，大面积推广种植单一抗病品种又常常促使新小种的产生和发展，最终导致品种抗性"丧失"。因此，开展向日葵与锈菌互作关系的分子机理研究，揭示病原物和寄主相互作用的分子机制，对于向日葵锈病的可持续控制具有重要意义。本项目引入转录组学的研究策略，以向日葵-锈菌亲和互作、非亲和互作为试材，利用RNA sequencing 技术进行表达谱测序，经生物信息学和GenBank数据库搜索分析获得差异片段可能的基因结构和功能，筛选出感病和抗病相关基因。通过实时定量PCR分析抗病基因的时空表达特征、并利用RACE技术克隆抗病相关基因的全长cDNA，通过转基因超量表达进行抗病候选基因的功能验证。本项目的完成对阐明向日葵抗锈病的分子机制，指导向日葵锈病抗性的合理利用和品种抗性的遗传改良具有重要的理论意义和实践价值。

Sunflower rust is prevalent in sunflower growing regions in China and other countries. In practice, breeding resistant varieties is the most economic and efficient way to control this disease. However, large area of mono-cultivation using single resistant variety often leads to development of new races, eventually lead to loss of disease resistance. Therefore, research on the molecular level interactions between sunflower and the rust pathogen Puccinia helianthi to reveal the mechanism of host-pathogen interaction is theoretically and practically significant to the optimal use of resistant varieties and sustainable disease control. The strategy of this project is to use a new technology, i.e., RNA-seq for transcriptomics to discover RNA transcripts by sequence readings based on compatible interaction and incompatible interaction as experimental materials. The differential expressed sequence tags obtained from bioinformatics and GenBank database analysis will be analyzed to know the structure and function of these genes,and then to screen the susceptibe and resistant-related genes which changed significantly at transcription level. qRT-PCR will be used to understand the spatial and temporal characteristics of the resistant gene expression. The whole length cDNA of the resistant genes will be cloned by the RACE technology.Then, the functions of these genes will be tested and validated by over-expression in transformed sunflowers.These results will have important theoretical and practical values to lead to further understanding of rust resistant mechanism and development of better resistant cultivars with optimalized use of resistant genes.