The nascent-polypeptide-associated complex alpha subunit regulates the polygalacturonases expression negatively and influences the pathogenicity of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum

Abstract

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is a necrotrophic plant-pathogenic fungus that infects more than 400 species of plants. In this study the nascent polypeptide-associated complex α subunit gene of S. sclerotiorum (SsNACα; accession No. XP_001593856.1) was cloned and characterized. The relative transcript expression of SsNACα at different morphological stages of asexual development of S. sclerotiorum were analyzed by quantitative real time PCR (qRT-PCR). RNAi-mediated gene silencing was successful for SsNACα, and the mutated strains exhibited less than 15% of the relative expression of SsNACα were obtained and used for studying the biological functions of the gene. A delay in sclerotial maturation for S. sclerotiorum was observed in the SsNACα mutants. The significant elevations for both the activities of pectin-degrading enzymes and the expression of polygalacturonase genes also were associated with the mutated strains, indicating that SsNACα could negatively influence polygalacturonases expression and modulate the pathogenicity of S. sclerotiorum.

• nascent polypeptide associated complex
• polygalacturonase
• RNA interference(Jurick II, 2007 #18)
• Sclerotinia sclerotiorum

Acknowledgments

We thank Zhengguang Zhang in the Department of Plant Pathology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China, for kindly providing the vector pSilent-1. This work was supported by the Commonwealth Specialized Research Fund of China Agriculture (grant No. 201103016), the Modern Industry (Rapeseed) Support Special Funds System of Anhui Province of China and Young Talents in Suzhou University (grant No. 2013XQRL06).