Skip to main content
ISMPMI Congress 2025 Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.

Poster

Session: Session 2 Presenting Authors at Posters (Evens)

P-048 - Global Analyses of Pathogen-triggered Gene Expression in the Arabidopsis Root: Defining UTR-Sequences that determine Translational Control and impact Defense

Thursday, July 17, 2025
13:30 - 15:15  
Location: Confex Hall 3
Crop resistance genetics and genomics

Upon pathogen challenge, plants display a multitude of induced responses, which are controlled on various levels. Besides transcriptional control, translational regulation has been highlighted, however not studied during root infection, yet. Here, we compare global TRAPseq (Translating Ribosome Affinity Purification and RNA Sequencing), Ribosome profiling (Riboseq) and RNAseq, to assay transcriptionally and translationally regulated gene expression in Arabidopsis roots infected with the vascular pathogenic fungus Verticillium longisporum. No strong correlation between transcription and translation has been observed in roots, highlighting the impact of translational control. Using a hairy root infection system with a dual luciferase output, we confirmed translational control of several candidate genes, such as ERF104 (ETHYLENE RESPONSE FACTOR104) or bZIP1 (BASIC LEUCINE ZIPPER1) transcription factors, which were found to be critical to restrict fungal spread. Analysis of the UTRs of differentially translated genes revealed a highly enriched, regulatory element (termed “AUC”), as well as uORFs (upstream open reading frames), which were functionally tested in infected hairy roots. Moreover, CRISPR-based editing confirmed the impact of translational control in infected transgenic plants. Taken together, this project broadens our mechanistic view on the regulation of pathogen-triggered gene expression and will enable novel strategies to improve pathogen resistance in crops.