Analyses of Histone Deacetylases During Rust Fungal Inoculation in Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)

Histone deacetylases (HDACs) which modify histone-DNA interactions are an important component of understanding global epigenomic pathways.  HDACs remove acetyl groups from histone proteins thereby repressing transcriptional activity and are mostly associated with heterochromatin regions. We are interested in understanding the role of HDACs during infection of common bean with the bean rust pathogen, Uromyces appendiculatus. Leaves from mock inoculated and inoculated bean plants were collected at 0, 12, and 84 hours and processed for colorimetric analysis to determine HDAC activity.  Our study showed a reduction in overall HDACs quantity at 12 hours in inoculated plants than in mock inoculated plants. To better understand HDAC activity at the molecular level, we selected a representative gene from several plant HDAC classes, and amplified them from RNA derived from the leaves used for the colorimetric assays by semi quantitative Real-Time PCR. Findings from this study will be helpful to understand the trend of HDACs expression as related to infection with fungal rust and to aid in whether any HDACs are responsive to biotic stress.