Molecular analysis of plant-parasitic nematodes during their interactions with wild-type and mutant Arabidopsis plants

植物寄生线虫是世界上许多主要粮食作物的一个巨大的农业问题。最具破坏性的植物寄生线虫之一是根结线虫。根结线虫是一种严重的农业威胁，由于其广泛的寄主范围和缺乏天然植物抗性。在敏感的相互作用中，根结线虫侵入寄主根系，并选择植物细胞转化为代谢活跃的取食位点。根结线虫对植物细胞的操纵，特别是线虫如何能够调节宿主植物途径，还没有很好的理解。该建议的目的是进一步探索植物/根结线虫的相互作用。我们希望确定和表征线虫基因是成功寄生的关键，因为这些将是线虫控制的优秀目标。为了实现这一目标，我们建议使用下一代测序技术来研究病原系统的线虫方面。特别是，我们的目标是集中在编码线虫蛋白的基因，在最初的感染过程中分泌在植物和比较的线虫感染后的易感植物和生长素不敏感的突变体增强线虫抗性的转录谱。然后，我们将使用基因沉默，并启动一个新的效应筛选功能的特点，这些线虫基因在寄生期间的作用。从这一提议中获得的信息将为在农业上重要的作物植物中设计新的线虫抗性提供基础。

Plant-parasitic nematodes are a huge agricultural problem on many of the world’s main food crops. One of the most damaging of the plant-parasitic nematodes is the root-knot nematode. Root-knot nematodes are a serious agricultural threat due to their large host range and lack of natural plant resistance. During the susceptible interaction, root-knot nematodes invade host roots and choose plant cells to convert into metabolically-active feeding sites. The root-knot nematode’s manipulation of the plant cell, and in particular how the nematode is able to regulate host plant pathways, is not well-understood. The aim of this proposal is to further explore plant/root-knot nematode interactions. We want to identify and characterize nematode genes that are critical to successful parasitism as these would be excellent targets for nematode control. To accomplish this goal, we propose to use next generation sequencing technology to study the nematode side of the pathosystem. In particular we aim to focus on the genes encoding nematode proteins that are secreted in planta during the initial infection processes and compare the transcriptional profiles of the nematodes after infection of a susceptible plant and an auxin-insensitive mutant with enhanced nematode resistance. We will then use gene silencing and initiate a novel effector screen to functionally characterize the roles of these nematode genes during parasitism. The information derived from this proposal will provide the foundations to engineer novel nematode resistance in agriculturally important crop plants.