| Doctorant : | Nariman ZAINALI |
| Directeur de thèse : | ALIZADEH Houshang (University of Teheran) |
| co-directeur de thèse : | Philippe DELAVAULT , Professeur Université |
| Financement : | Co-tutelle de thèse Université de Téhéran / Nantes Université |
Introduction and Problem Statement
Parasitic plants of Orobanchaceae family, especially Phelipanche spp. are devastating obligate holoparasites that are spread in regions of the Mediterranean Sea and West Asia (Delavault, 2015) that in some cases can cause 100% crop loss (Abang et al., 2007) and are nearly impossible to control with traditional methods. The parasite-host connection via haustorium establishes water and nutrients uptake, exchanges of macromolecules such as proteins, DNA segments, mRNAs (Kim & Westwood, 2015), as well as small RNAs (Tomilov et al., 2008; Bandaranayake & Yoder, 2013). sRNAs act as signals in RNA interference which recently has been suggested for controlling pests, weeds, and pathogens of crop plants (Aly et al. 2009; San Miguel and Scott 2016; Mitter et al., 2017). In the past few years, several studies have shown the effectiveness of nanoparticles as carriers to deliver cargos to plants (Demirer et al., 2019). DNA nanostructures are predesigned DNA strands that due to their programmability and ready access to modification have an advantage over other nanomaterials (Bujold et al., 2018), and their functionality for delivering cargos such as RNA, DNA, and proteins to living cells have been investigated (Zhang et al., 2019).
Research Method
We aim to control broomrape by silencing some of the critical genes for parasite success such as genes involved in the osmoregulation process (e.g. M6PR, SuS1, and CWI genes) and possibly in haustorium formation (e.g. expansin, QR, and/or hormonal regulators of the process) and flowering pathway (e.g. ACS or a putative FD protein) by host-induced gene silencing (HIGS) and spray- induced gene silencing (SIGS) via the help of nanoparticles using the methods of either Mitter et al., (2017) or Zhang et al., (2019). To disrupt the flowering pathway, an investigation will be done comparatively to find the putative genes involved in the flowering event. To this end, the genomic and transcriptomic data available on online databases e.g. the Parasitic Plant Genome Project (http://ppgp.huck.psu.edu) will be exploited. Besides, we aim to target multiple genes simultaneously by a combinatorial silencing construct using the methods described previously (Zhang et al., 2018; Lunardon et al., 2021). Different experimental approaches such as qRT-PCR analysis, northern blot, and or small RNA-seq will be used for siRNA analyses.
Expected Results and Output of the Study
We predict that the results of this study include
i) obtaining the nanoparticle composition that has the best ability to carry and, release dsRNA as a SIGS controlling method,
ii) development of resistant lines of tomato to broomrape using the HIGS method, and
iii) identification of putative genes that are involve in the flowering of broomrape and can be targeted for silencing.
In total, we expect enhanced resistance of tomato to broomrape and reduced infection by and increased mortality of broomrape parasites which could be a promising achievement for the agricultural lands under the infestation of these parasites.
Publications
2023
Dans: Cybium, vol. 47, iss. 3, p. 315-323, 2023, ISBN: 0399-0974.