Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) in cape gooseberry (Physalis peruviana L., Solanaceae)

Abstract

Cape gooseberry (Physalis peruviana, L.) is a herbaceous plant belonging to the Solanaceae family that produces an edible berry appreciated for its nutraceutical and pharmaceutical properties. Its production is often limited by diseases and reproducible fruit quality. Recent studies have reported genes associated with fruit quality and resistance response to the root-infecting fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. physali (Foph,) which causes vascular wilt. In order to standardize a method to validate the biological function of candidate genes in the non-model species P. peruviana, we tested the robust approach in reverse genetics, virus induced gene silencing (VIGS). In this study, we validated and optimized VIGS using an insert of the phytoenedesaturase (PDS) gene in a silencing viral vector generated from tobacco rattlevirus (TRV). Leaves infiltrated with Agrobacterium (GV3101 strain) showed photo-bleached segments, which were distinctive for PDS suppression at 7 days post-infection (dpi). More than half of the treated plants showed photo bleaching, indicating an efficiency rate of 50 % of the VIGS protocol. The results of this study showed that VIGS can be used for future functional gene characterization implicated in the immune response, disease resistance and fruit quality in capegooseberry.

Combining transcriptome analysis and GWAS for identification and validation of marker genes in thePhysalis peruviana-Fusarium oxysporumpathosystem

“…Here, from the four genes evaluated, the TUB gene presented the lowest variation among samples. Osorio-Guarín, García-Arias & Yockteng (2019), also recommended TUB as an endogenous gene to evaluate the phytoene desaturase (PDS) gene expression in cape gooseberry leaf tissue, confirming the suitability of this gene for RT-qPCR analyses. This gene is also known to show a highly stable expression in carrot (Tian et al, 2015), sisal (Sarwar et al, 2020) and soybean (Hu et al, 2009).…”