AUTHOR=Rody Hugo V. S. , Camargo Luis E. A. , Creste Silvana , Van Sluys Marie-Anne , Rieseberg Loren H. , Monteiro-Vitorello Claudia B. 

TITLE=Arabidopsis-Based Dual-Layered Biological Network Analysis Elucidates Fully Modulated Pathways Related to Sugarcane Resistance on Biotrophic Pathogen Infection

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science

VOLUME=12

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2021.707904

DOI=10.3389/fpls.2021.707904

ISSN=1664-462X

ABSTRACT=<p>We assembled a dual-layered biological network to study the roles of resistance gene analogs (RGAs) in the resistance of sugarcane to infection by the biotrophic fungus causing smut disease. Based on sugarcane-<italic>Arabidopsis</italic> orthology, the modeling used metabolic and protein-protein interaction (PPI) data from <italic>Arabidopsis thaliana</italic> (from Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and BioGRID databases) and plant resistance curated knowledge for Viridiplantae obtained through text mining of the UniProt/SwissProt database. With the network, we integrated functional annotations and transcriptome data from two sugarcane genotypes that differ significantly in resistance to smut and applied a series of analyses to compare the transcriptomes and understand both signal perception and transduction in plant resistance. We show that the smut-resistant sugarcane has a larger arsenal of RGAs encompassing transcriptionally modulated subnetworks with other resistance elements, reaching <italic>hub</italic> proteins of primary metabolism. This approach may benefit molecular breeders in search of markers associated with quantitative resistance to diseases in non-model systems.</p>