BioProject

Northern corn leaf blight (NLB), caused by the fungal pathogen Exserohilum turcicum, results significant yield reductions in infected corn. More...

Northern corn leaf blight (NLB), caused by the fungal pathogen Exserohilum turcicum, results significant yield reductions in infected corn. The first major locus conferring resistance to E. turcicum race 0, Ht1, was identified over 50 years ago, but despite widespread deployment the underlying gene has remained unknown. We employed map-based cloning to identify the Ht1 causal gene, which was found to be a coiled-coil nucleotide-binding, leucine-rich repeat (NLR) gene, termed PH4GP-Ht1. Transgenic testing confirmed that addition of the native PH4GP-Ht1 sequence to the susceptible maize variety PH184C resulted in resistance to E. turcicum race 0. A survey of the maize NAM genomes revealed that susceptible Ht1 alleles had very low to no expression, but overexpression of the susceptible B73 allele did not result in resistant plants, indicating that relatively minor protein sequence variations may underlie the resistance phenotype. Modeling of the PH4GP-Ht1 protein indicated that it has structural homology to the Arabidopsis NLR resistance gene ZAR1, and likely forms a similar homo-pentamer structure following activation. RNA-seq data from an infection time course revealed that one week after inoculation there was a threefold reduction in fungal biomass and a dramatic increase in DEGs when comparing mock to inoculated PH4GP-Ht1 transgenic plants and null plants. These results demonstrate that the NLR PH4GP-Ht1 is the causal gene underlying the NLB resistance phenotype of Ht1. Overall design: RNA-seq quantification of maize plants inoculated with northern leaf blight Less...