Genome-wide identification of cyclophilin genes in Gossypium hirsutum and functional characterization of a CYP with antifungal activity against Verticillium dahliae

Abstract

Background: Cyclophilins (CYPs), belonging to the peptidyl prolyl cis/trans isomerase (PPIase) superfamily, play important roles during plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. Results: Here, a total of 79 CYPs were identified in the genome of Gossypium hirsutum. Of which, 65 GhCYPs only contained one cyclophilin type PPIase domain, others 14 GhCYPs contain additional domains. A number of cis-acting elements related to phytohormone signaling were predicated in the upstream of GhCYPs ORF. The expression analysis revealed that GhCYPs were induced in response to cold, hot, salt, PEG and Verticillium dahliae infection. In addition, the functional importance of GhCYP-3 in Verticillium wilt resistance was also presented in this study. GhCYP-3 showed both cytoplasmic and nuclear localization. Overexpression of GhCYP-3 in Arabidopsis significantly improved Verticillium wilt resistance of the plants. Recombinant GhCYP-3 displayed PPIase activity and evident inhibitory effects on V. dahliae in vitro. Moreover, the extracts from GhCYP-3 transgenic Arabidopsis displayed significantly inhibit activity to conidia germinating and hyphal growth of V. dahliae. Conclusions: Our study identified the family members of cotton CYP genes using bioinformatics tools. Differential expression patterns of GhCYPs under various abiotic stress and V. dahliae infection conditions provide a comprehensive understanding of the biological functions of candidate genes. Moreover, GhCYP-3 involved in the resistance of cotton to V. dahliae infection presumably through antifungal activity.

Cotton GhSSI2 isoforms from the stearoyl acyl carrier protein fatty acid desaturase family regulate Verticillium wilt resistance

“…Then we silenced GhSSI2 genes in the susceptible cotton variety CCRI8. Two weeks after VIGS treatment of CCRI8, the seedlings were inoculated with highly virulent V. dahliae strain Linxi2-1 (Yang et al, 2019). Three weeks after infection, the GhSSI2-silenced plants displayed dramatically improved Verticillium wilt resistance, with less leaf chlorosis, less wilting, and lower disease index compared to TRV:00 plants (Figure 3a,c).…”

The Chalcone Isomerase Family in Cotton: Whole-Genome Bioinformatic and Expression Analyses of the Gossypium barbadense L. Response to Fusarium Wilt Infection

“…With the development of sequencing techniques, the genomes of two diploids (G. arboretum L. and G. raimondii L.) and two allotetraploids (G. hirsutum L. and G. barbadense L.) have been completely sequenced [23][24][25]. Genome-wide analyses of diverse gene families has successfully provided us with greatly new and important information about the biotic stress response mechanisms of cotton and lay a foundation of critical data for future studies [26].…”

Peer Review #2 of "Transcriptome sequencing of Verticillium dahliae from a cotton farm reveals positive correlation between virulence and tolerance of sugar-induced hyperosmosis (v0.1)"

“…Salicylic acid (SA) crosstalking with auxin, ethylene, and jasmonates (JA) is crucial for the inducible response of plants to pathogens infection including systemic acquired resistance and induced systemic resistance (Pieterse et al, 1998;Lopez et al, 2008;Vlot et al, 2009). In the plants response to Verticillium dahliae infection, many genes that are mostly involved in lignin biosynthesis and phenylpropanoid metabolic pathway are induced (Li et al, 2019b;Yang et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2019c). The increasing of these gene expressions could confer resistance to the Verticillium wilt (VW) in cotton.…”