Poster: Plant-pathogen interactions

Abs # 521: Comparative analysis of transcriptional profiling from various Xylella fastidiosa’s strains using Microarray.

Presenter:	Lu, Jiang , jiang.lu@famu.edu
Authors	Huang, Hong  (A) (B)  Lu, Jiang  (A)   Hopkins,  Donald  (C)   Altmann, Curtis  (B)   Leong, Stephen  (A)
Affiliations:	(A): Florida A&M University (B): Florida State University (C): University of Florida

Xylella fastidiosa (XF) is the pathogen causing grape Pierce’s disease and several other important fruit diseases such as the Citrus Variegated Chlorosis (CVC). Genomes of two XF strains (9a5c and Temecula1) have been completely sequenced and are available on NCBI database. 2,905 genes have been annotated and 5,598 putative proteins have been identified in XF 9a5c, a CVC strain, while 2,125 genes were annotated and 4,466 putative proteins were identified in a PD strain XF Temecula. Comparative analysis of these two genomes indicated that strain specific genes might be critical for pathogenicity, virulence and adaptation. Oligo probes were designed base on the XF Temecula genomic sequence data for identifying pathogenesis related genes that involve Xylella attachment, binding, and movement within the plant during the XF /grapevine interaction. A transcriptome approach is used to analyze transcriptional profiles of XF infected to susceptible and resistant grapevines. Three different pathogenicity PD strains (highly virulent, weak virulent and non virulent) growed in the Petridish medium and inoculated into PD resistant, PD tolerant, and PD susceptible grape varieties, respectively. The RNA sample of bacteria isolated from medium culture and grape xylem sap were collected for the Microarray analysis. Microarray analysis of the transcriptional profiles of XF-grapevines interaction should enable us to identify the critical genes related to XF pathogenicity.