Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.
Non-UMass Amherst users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
Dissertations that have an embargo placed on them will not be available to anyone until the embargo expires.
Title
UNCOVERING TRANSCRIPTOMICS RESPONSES AND REGULATIONS DURING FUSARIUM OXYSPORUM – PLANT INTERACTIONS
Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5374-2783
AccessType
Open Access Dissertation
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Plant Biology
Year Degree Awarded
2023
Month Degree Awarded
September
First Advisor
Li-Jun Ma
Subject Categories
Integrative Biology
Abstract
Fusarium oxysporum causes devastating wilt diseases in more than one hundred crops. To provide a foundation for developing technologies to enhance plant health, sustain a healthy ecosystem, and feed a continuously growing human population, my dissertation research has focused on uncovering transcriptional responses and regulations during F. oxysporum and plant interactions from fungi and plant host aspects. Through a literature review (Chapter 1), we learned that accessory chromosomes (ACs) and transcriptional regulators are essential for the host-specific virulence of F. oxysporum.
Transcription factors, key regulatory elements in the sensory and response networks of these fungi, undoubtedly play a fundamental role in establishing the adaptability of this group. We compared the TFome (Chapter 2), which consists of all TFs found within a genome, to look at a species' evolutionary history of its regulatory mechanisms. The study revealed both the conservation and diversity of F. oxysporum TFome.
The ACs from each F. oxysporum genome likely dictate strain-specific interactions with a particular host. This allows a comparative study that minimizes genetic differences between strains to address the underlying mechanism that results in distinct phenotypes (e.g., pathogenic vs. non-pathogenic outcomes). We performed a comparative transcriptomics study (Chapter 3) of infection by an endophytic (Fo47) and a pathogenic (Fo5176) strain of F. oxysporum in the context of the F. oxysporum-Arabidopsis pathosystem, which revealed the transcriptional plasticity of plant defense responses.
F. oxysporum penetrates the root epidermis, propagating and moving toward the vasculature. These pathogens' occupation of the vascular system blocks water and nutrient transport, further causing devastating wilt disease. Extensive efforts have been taken by bulk transcriptome profiling to probe the integral plant responses to the F. oxysporum stress. However, as the pathogen journeys through multiple layers to establish the infection, different root cell types likely respond differently. We performed a single-nucleus RNA sequencing analysis in the Arabidopsis-F. oxysporum pathosystem (Chapter 4). Our research revealed a unique pathogen-induced cell cluster enriched for defense-related functions that could aid in developing new strategies to improve plant defense mechanisms.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/35789052
Recommended Citation
Yu, Houlin, "UNCOVERING TRANSCRIPTOMICS RESPONSES AND REGULATIONS DURING FUSARIUM OXYSPORUM – PLANT INTERACTIONS" (2023). Doctoral Dissertations. 2926.
https://doi.org/10.7275/35789052
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/2926
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Supplemental Dataset 2.zip (1422 kB)
Supplemental Figures.pdf (6421 kB)