Project name: Hordeum vulgare

Description: Ustilago hordei is a basidiomycete fungus that infects barley and oats. It has a narrow host range and can infect only germinating seedlings. Symptoms do not occur until heading of the mature plants when the fungus has proliferated in meristematic tissue and replaces kernels with masses of black teliospores. Incompatibility is due to the presence of an avirulence effector product, UhAVR1, expressed in the fungus upon infection and secreted into the host, which is subsequently recognized by the barley plant resistance gene product RUH1 in cultivar Hannchen, leading to plant cell death, fungal growth arrest, and no disease. We have identified UhAvr1, and the transcriptome response of the barley plant to strains with and deleted for this gene was assessed using the 22K Affymetrix barley array. Incompatibility and cell death is apparent at 48 hrs after inoculation, so the transcriptome was assessed at this time point. For comparison, the transcriptome of barley cultivar Odessa, which lacks resistance gene Ruh1, during a compatible interaction was also assessed.Overall design: Three biological repeats of a mock infection (coleoptiles brushed with water: "MC", mock control), U. hordei teliospores from a wild-type cross (Uh362 Uhavr1 x Uh364 UhAvr1, "58"), and teliospores from a cross with a UhAvr1 deletion mutant (cross Uh362 Uhavr1 x Uh364 ΔUhAvr1, "116") were analyzed on barley cultivar Hannchen (Ruh1). Teliospore samples "58" and "116" were also assessed, each in triplicate, on cultivar Odessa (ruh1).Citation: Ali, S, Laurie, J. D., Linning, R., Cervantes-Chavez, J. A., Gaudet, D. and Bakkeren, G. An immunity-triggering effector from the barley smut fungus Ustilago hordei resides in an Ustilaginaceae-specific cluster bearing signs of transposable element-assisted evolution.

Data type: Transcriptome or Gene expression

Sample scope: Multiisolate

Relevance: Agricultural

Last updated: 2013-07-12