Transcriptomic Analysis of the Resistance of Potatoes Against Potato Wart Disease

Potato is a host for many different diseases like for example potato wart disease. This disease is caused by Synchytrium endobioticum (Schilberszky) Percival which is classified as a quarantine pest. From 38 S. endobioticum pathotypes occurring in Europe, pathotype 1, 2, 6 and 18 are the most relevant ones. An infection with this pathogen can cause yield losses from 50 - 100 %. The resistance mechanism and the pathogenesis are not well characterized until now.The question is how these reactions are characterized on transcriptomic level. The objective of this study is to identify candidate genes based on a transcriptomic approach. To characterize the transcriptome of potatoes and, moreover, to get an insight of gene expression patterns during the infection with Synchytrium endobioticum in resistant and susceptible potato genotypes, a RNA-seq analysis is carried out. Most of the potatoes are autotetraploid and therefore the transcriptome is expected to be highly complex. For RNA-seq analysis well phenotypic characterized tetraploid potato genotypes were used. Two pools, each consisting of four resistant and four susceptible genotypes, were constructed for Illumina paired-end sequencing. Samples for RNA sequencing and data validation were harvested on three different time points during the infection process and mock treatments (2, 7 and 14 dpi). It was possible to identify 22 differentially expressed genes between susceptible and resistant pools as putative candidates. Especially the expression of NB-LRR genes were analyzed and first candidate genes were identified, which have to be validated by qRT-PCR.