Bacterial endophytes as indicators of susceptibility to Cercospora Leaf Spot (CLS) disease in Beta vulgaris L
2022
Broccanello, Chiara | Ravi, Smathmika | Deb, Spatarathi | Bolton, M. (Melvin) | Secor, Gary | Richards, Christopher | Maretto, Laura | Lucia, Maria Cristina Della | Bertoldo, Giovanni | Orsini, Elena | Ronquillo-Lopez, Maria Gabriela | Concheri, Giuseppe | Campagna, Giovanni | Squartini, Andrea | Stevanato, Piergiorgio
The fungus Cercospora beticola causes Cercospora Leaf Spot (CLS) of sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.). Despite the global importance of this disease, a durable resistance to CLS has not been obtained and thus the breeding of tolerant hybrids is still a major challenge. Knowledge of the leaf microbiome composition can offer useful predictors to assist breeders but is yet an untapped resource in sugar beet breeding efforts. Using Ion GeneStudio S5 technology to sequence amplicons from seven 16S rRNA hypervariable regions, we identified the most recurring endophytes within leaves of infected and healthy sea beets (B. vulgaris ssp. maritima). This allowed the design of taxon-specific primer pairs to quantify the abundance of each of the most representative endophytic species in 302 wild accessions of sea beet that were either healthy (n=157) or infected with CLS (n=145) by qPCR. The screened bacterial genera included Methylobacterium, Aurantimonas, Mucilaginibacter, Propionibacterium, Sphingomonas, Pseudomonas and Massilia. Five out of seven genera were found to be significantly less abundant in healthy plants. These data suggest that endophyte abundance is a trait that can be correlated to an increased sensitivity to CLS disease. This evidence can prompt novel protocols to assist plant breeding of sugar beet in the pursuit of improved pathogen-resistance.
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