Oral: Plant Resistance
102-O
Identifying genetic variation in the Sorghum PAMP response
D. CHEN (1), P. Balint-Kurti (2), G. Stacey (1) (1) Divisions of Plant Science and Biochemistry, University of Missouri-Columbia, MO, 65201, U.S.A.; (2) USDA-ARS, Department of Plant Pathology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, U.S.A.
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Sorghum is an important grain, forage and biofuel crop with a fully sequenced genome and a variety of available genetic resources. In comparison to studies of Arabidopsis, very little is known about the innate immunity response of crop species, including sorghum. Such studies could contribute to efforts to create crops with enhanced disease resistance. The plant innate immunity system is triggered by plant recognition of conserved pathogen molecules, so called pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs). We measured PAMP induced production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) as a quantitative measure of the immunity response in more than 50 different Sorghum genotypes. In addition, we also analyzed the production of nitric oxide (NO) as another measure of the plant response to PAMP addition. The results showed a significant variation among the phenotypes with a few responding very strongly with others showing essentially no response. This variation provides the basis for additional experiments focused on defining specific genetic loci that control the Sorghum PAMP response. We are also conducted a transcriptomic analysis of the Sorghum PAMP response with the goal to define expression QTL (eQTL) related to pathogen resistance. The goal is to use the information obtained to aid breeding efforts to increase biotic stress resistance in Sorghum.