Plant, Animal & Microbe Genomes X Conference

January 12-16, 2002
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Poster: Genome Sequencing & ESTs
            

EXPRESSION ANALYSIS OF A cDNA LIBRARY OF FUSARIUM HEAD BLIGHT INFECTED WHEAT SPIKES.

¹ USDA-ARS, Plant Science and Entomology Unit, Manhattan, KS. 66506

² Kansas State University, Department of Plant Pathology, Manhattan, KS 66506

The sequencing of randomly selected cDNA clones has become a rapidly growing area for the identification of genes expressed in organisms with large genomes. Gene expression can be studied at various stages of development and environmental response. A cDNA library was made from wheat spikes of the variety ‘Sumai 3’, 24 h after inoculation with Fusarium graminearum. Isolated plasmids from 864 colonies were sequenced using automated DNA analysis. Quality sequence from 799 colonies was submitted for database alignment using BLASTX. Redundancy analysis determined that 580 singletons were present in the library, of which 346 could be assigned putative function. We prepared cDNA membrane arrays using the 580 singletons to determine which were induced upon infection by Fusarium. Expression analysis determined that 96 of the clones were induced of which 9 were defense response, 3 stress induced, and 3 resistance genes. The other 40 clones were involved in other cell functions. There were 41 genes that do not have a known function that were induced representing new genes. These results show that expressed sequence tags (ESTs) are important in understanding plant response to pathogen infection as well as provide target genes for understanding plant-pathogen interactions.