Integration of metabolomics and transcriptomics reveals the regulation mechanism of the phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathway in insect resistance traits in Solanum habrochaites

Abstract

Solanum habrochaites (SH), a wild species closely related to ‘Ailsa Craig’ (AC), is an important germplasm resource for modern tomato breeding. Trichomes, developed from epidermal cells, have a role in defense against insect attack, and their secretions are of non-negligible value. Here, we found that the glandular heads of type VI trichomes were clearly distinguishable between AC and SH under cryo-scanning electron microscopy, the difference indicating that SH could secrete more anti-insect metabolites than AC. Pest preference experiments showed that aphids and mites preferred to feed near AC compared with SH. Integration analysis of transcriptomics and metabolomics data revealed that the phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathway was an important secondary metabolic pathway in plants, and SH secreted larger amounts of phenylpropanoids and flavonoids than AC by upregulating the expression of relevant genes in this pathway, and this may contribute to the greater resistance of SH to phytophagous insects. Notably, virus-induced silencing of Sl4CLL6 not only decreased the expression of genes downstream of the phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathway (SlHCT, SlCAD, and SlCHI), but also reduced resistance to mites in tomato. These findings provided new genetic resources for the synthesis of phenylpropanoid compounds and anti-insect breeding in S. habrochaites and a new theoretical basis for the improvement of important traits in cultivated tomato.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants U22A20495 and 32072588) and the National Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province (LH2021C032).

Author contributions

M.L.W. performed investigation, methodology and writing-original fraft. Y.D.W. performed formal analysis and visualization. X.Z.L. leveraged software. Y.Z., X.L.C., and J.Y.L. performed validation, supervision, and project administration. Y.W.Q. completed conceptualization, funding acquisition, acquisition of resources, and writing-review. A.X.W. performed project administration, acquisition of resources, and funding acquistion. All authors have discussed and approved the manuscript.

Data availability statement

The authors declare that all data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article are available upon request from the corresponding author. The transcriptome raw data had been uploaded to the NCBI SRA database with the accession number PRJNA988827.

Conflict of interests

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data is available at Horticulture Research online.

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