Cloning and characterization of two neuropeptide genes from cereal cyst nematode, Heterodera avanae from India

Abstract

The cereal cyst nematode, Heterodera avenae (Wollenweber, 1924) is one of the most important plant parasitic nematodes of cereals. It is an obligate sedentary endo parasite causing considerable crop losses in wheat, barley and oats worldwide. FMRFamide-like peptides (FLPs) play critical role as neurotransmitters or neuromodulators in the nervous system and proposed as one of the important targets for the plant parasitic nematode management. Therefore, for the first time we have cloned and characterized two neuropeptide genes (flp-12 and flp-16) from the cDNA library of feeding female of H. avenae. Sequence analysis of FLPs revealed that both the neuropeptides are closely related with the parasitic as well as free-living nematodes. The flp-12 contains putative 22 residue long signal peptide at N-terminal suggesting its association with extra-cellular functions, while flp-16 does not contain signal peptide. Besides this, we have found highly conserved motif KFEFIRF in flp-12 and RFGK motif in flp-16. These two flp genes could be interesting and potential targets for functional validation to explore their utility for designing management strategies.

Identification of neuropeptides, flp-1 and flp-12 targeting neuromuscular system of rice root knot nematode (RRKN) Meloidogyne graminicola

“…flp-1 showed best hit with the M. incognita having 70% identities (E value 3e-26) and 17% Gaps. Whereas, database searches for the flp-12 revealed 99% identity with Heterodera avenae [18] and 95% with M. incoginta. Conceptually translated nucleotide sequences into the corresponding amino acids resulted in 70 ( flp-1 ) and 91 ( flp-12 ) amino acids.…”

FMRFamide-Like Peptide 22 Influences the Head Movement, Host Finding, and Infection of Heterodera glycines

“…There is an increasing interest in understanding the potential for exploiting key regulatory genes embedded within the neuromuscular system as a target resource to develop PPN control strategies in the agricultural system. Several neuron-related genes have been identified and cloned from PPN (Yan and Davis, 2002;Costa et al, 2009;Kang et al, 2011;Shivakumara et al, 2019). For example, acetylcholinesterases (ACEs) are important in the regulation of neuronal synaptic transmission, in vitro RNA interference, or plant-expressing dsRNAs to effect silencing of ace genes significantly inhibited the invasion, development, and parasitic abilities of PPN (Jae et al, 2011;Cui et al, 2017).…”

“…Some neuropeptide-like proteins (NLP) identified from PPN were found to negatively regulate chemosensation, host invasion, and stylet thrusting of M. incognita and G. pallida, and exogenous application of the transgenic Bacillus subtilis and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii secreting these NLP can protect tomato from M. incognita and G. pallida invasion (Warnock et al, 2017). The recently reported silencing of chemosensory genes, , which are located in the amphidial neuron and phasmid of M. incognita, resulted in defects in the host recognition and invasion (Shivakumara et al, 2019). In this direction, the neuromuscular system may provide attractive and alternative targets for H. glycines control as part of an integrated management strategy.…”

“…FLPs have been extensively studied for their core roles in the neuromuscular function of Caenorhabditis elegans and animal-parasitic nematodes ( Li and Kim, 2014 ; McCoy et al, 2014 ; Peymen et al, 2014 ). Only a few flp genes have been successfully cloned from PPN, including M. incognita ( Dalzell et al, 2009 ; Roderick et al, 2012 ), Meloidogyne graminicola ( Kumari et al, 2017 ), G. pallida ( Kimber et al, 2001 ; Dalzell et al, 2009 ; Atkinson et al, 2013 ), and Heterodera avanae ( Thakur et al, 2012 ; Dutta et al, 2020 ). RNAi-mediated suppression of the flp genes in PPN resulted in the reduction of locomotion and chemosensory activities of second-stage juveniles (J2s), thereby impairing their infection ability ( Kimber et al, 2007 ; Dalzell et al, 2009 , 2010 ; Papolu et al, 2013 ; Dong et al, 2014 ; Kumari et al, 2017 ; Dutta et al, 2020 ).…”

Characterization of genetic homogeneity of an Indian population of cereal cyst nematode, Heterodera avenae using sequencing and PCR-RFLP of ribosomal DNA

“…The present management options to reduce the yield losses caused by H. avenae are not adequate as most of the nematicides are either not available or discontinued [11]. In view of this there is an urgent need to design some alternate modern management options for which nematode genomics will be very useful.…”