ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Pathogen Interactions
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1618387
Dynamic Transcriptomic Responses to Soybean Cyst Nematode Infection in Soybean Genotypes with Contrasting Resistance Profiles
Provisionally accepted
Nour Nissan1,2
Nathalie Puchacz1
Julia C Hooker1,2
Dave T Ste-Croix3
Gerardo Zapata4François Lefebvre4Martin Charette1Ashkan Golshani2
Elroy Cober1
Benjamin Mimee3
Bahram Samanfar1,2*- 1Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
- 2Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
- 3Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Saint Jean sur Richelieu, Quebec, Canada
- 4Canadian Centre for Computational Genomics, Montral, Canada
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Soybean cyst nematode populations are evolving to overcome the limited genetic resistance currently employed in commercial soybean varieties, threatening the future of crop production. To mitigate that, itsthe damage, it is crucial to identify novel sources of resistance. Soybean lines previously determined to not possess resistant alleles at rhg1 or Rhg4, PI 561310 and PI 567295, exhibited partial resistance to SCN HG type 0 via unrelated mechanisms. In this study, we performed RNA-sequencing on root tissues collected under non-infected and infected conditions at 5 days and 10 days postinfection, and applied comparative transcriptomic response analysis to elucidate the resistance mechanisms employed by these lines, in comparison to Essex, Peking and PI 88788, in response to SCN infection. We discovered that the resistance mechanism employed by PI 561310 appears to be driven by the expression of PAL, which positively regulates downstream lignin, flavonoid and salicylic acid biosynthesis pathways. While unable to elucidate the resistance strategy employed by PI 567295, we observed a unique and divergent transcriptomic response, whereby genes were predominantly downregulated, as oppose to canonically upregulated. PI 567295 presents as a novel source of resistance unlike anything currently presented in the literature and our results provide direction for its further elucidation and characterization. This study explores the diversity of defense strategies and provides useful information on novel genetic origins of SCN resistance as we navigate the landscape of evolving SCN parasitism. 1
Keywords: Soybean cyst nematode, SCN, Soybean, RNA-Seq, differential expression, SCN resistance Font: Italic Formatted: Font: Italic Formatted: Font: Italic Formatted: Font: Italic Formatted: Font: Italic Formatted: Font: Italic Formatted: Font: Italic Formatted: Font: Italic Formatted: Font: Italic
Received: 29 Apr 2025; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Nissan, Puchacz, Hooker, Ste-Croix, Zapata, Lefebvre, Charette, Golshani, Cober, Mimee and Samanfar. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Bahram Samanfar, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Ottawa, K1A 0C5, Ontario, Canada
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