Transcriptome and Expression Profile Analysis of Highly Resistant and Susceptible Banana Roots Challenged with Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense Tropical Race 4

Banana wilt disease, caused by the fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense 4 (Foc4), is regarded as one of the most devastating diseases worldwide. Cavendish cultivar ‘Yueyoukang 1’ was shown to have significantly lower disease severity and incidence compared with susceptible cultivar ‘Brazilian’ in greenhouse and field trials. De novo sequencing technology was previously performed to investigate defense mechanism in middle resistant ‘Nongke No 1’ banana, but not in highly resistant cultivar ‘Yueyoukang 1’. To gain more insights into the resistance mechanism in banana against Foc4, Illumina Solexa sequencing technology was utilized to perform transcriptome sequencing of ‘Yueyoukang 1’ and ‘Brazilian’ and characterize gene expression profile changes in the both two cultivars at days 0.5, 1, 3, 5 and 10 after infection with Foc4. The results showed that more massive transcriptional reprogramming occurs due to Foc4 treatment in ‘Yueyoukang 1’ than ‘Brazilian’, especially at the first three time points, which suggested that ‘Yueyoukang 1’ had much faster defense response against Foc4 infection than ‘Brazilian’. Expression patterns of genes involved in ‘Plant-pathogen interaction’ and ‘Plant hormone signal transduction’ pathways were analyzed and compared between the two cultivars. Defense genes associated with CEBiP, BAK1, NB-LRR proteins, PR proteins, transcription factor and cell wall lignification were expressed stronger in ‘Yueyoukang 1’ than ‘Brazilian’, indicating that these genes play important roles in banana against Foc4 infection. However, genes related to hypersensitive reaction (HR) and senescence were up-regulated in ‘Brazilian’ but down-regulated in ‘Yueyoukang 1’, which suggested that HR and senescence may contribute to Foc4 infection. In addition, the resistance mechanism in highly resistant ‘Yueyoukang 1’ was found to differ from that in middle resistant ‘Nongke No 1’ banana. These results explain the resistance in the highly resistant cultivar and provide more insights in understanding the compatible and incompatible interactions between banana and Foc4.