A QTL of eggplant shapes the rhizosphere bacterial community, co-responsible for resistance to bacterial wilt

Abstract

Resistant crop cultivars can recruit beneficial rhizobacteria to resist disease. However, whether this recruitment is regulated by quantitative trait loci (QTL) is unclear. The role of QTL in recruiting specific bacteria against bacterial wilt (BW) is an important question of practical significance to disease management. Here, to identify QTL controlling BW resistance, Super-BSA was performed in F₂ plants derived from resistant eggplant cultivar R06112 × susceptible cultivar S55193. The QTL was narrowed down through BC₁F₁-BC₃F₁ individuals by wilting symptoms and KASP markers. Rhizosphere bacterial composition of R06112, S55193, and resistant individuals EB158 (with the QTL) and susceptible individuals EB327 (without QTL) from BC₂F₁ generation were assessed by Illumina sequencing-based analysis, and the activation of plant immunity by the bacterial isolates was analyzed. Evidence showed that BW-resistant is controlled by one QTL located at the 270 kb region on chromosome 10, namely EBWR10, and nsLTPs as candidate genes confirmed by RNA-Seq. EBWR10 has a significant effect on rhizobacteria composition and significantly recruits Bacillus. pp. A SynCom of three isolated Bacillus. pp trains significantly reduced the disease incidence, changed activities of CAT, PPO, and PAL and concentration of NO, H₂O₂, and O₂−, activated SA and JA signaling-dependent ISR, and displayed immune activation against Ralstonia solanacearum in eggplant. Our findings demonstrate for the first time that the QTL can recruit beneficial rhizobacteria, which jointly promote the suppression of BW. This method charts a path to develop the QTL in resistant cultivar-driven probiotics to ameliorate plant diseases.

Acknowledgements

The present study was financially supported by major special projects of the Guangxi Science and Technology Program (AA22068088-2), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2021A1515012490), the Natural Science Foundation of China (32372702), the Guangzhou Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (202201010247), the Department of Agriculture and Rural Areas of Guangdong Province of China (2023KJ110, 2023KJ106, 2022-NJS-00-005, and 2022-NPY-00-026), the Special Fund for Scientific Innovation Strategy-Construction of High Leveled Academy of Agriculture Science (202114TD, R2019PY-JX003, R2023PY-JX008) and the Scientific and technological research project of Harbin Science and Technology Department (2021ZSZZNS07).

Authors’ contributions

C.G., T.L. and Z.W. contributed to the idea, performed the experiments, analysed and visualized the data, and wrote the original manuscript. S.C. and P.M. performed the experiments. W.L. and S.L. made contributions to the data analyses. Z.L., B.S., Z.L., and Y.L. provided the resources and supervised the project. T.L. and Y.W. were major contributors to conceptualization, project administration, supervision, and funding acquisition.

Data availability

Genome Sequence Archive in the National Genomics Data Center, China National Center for Bioinformation/Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences was used to deposit the raw sequence data (GSA: CRA008448, CRA009725), at https://ngdc.cncb.ac.cn/gsa. All relevant data generated or analysed are included in the manuscript and the supporting materials.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Supplementary data

Supplementary data is available at Horticulture Research online.

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