ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Functional and Applied Plant Genomics
This article is part of the Research TopicTransforming Crop Resilience with Multi-Omics ApproachesView all 6 articles
Integrated RNA-seq and snRNA-seq analysis Identifies PR10 Tandem Gene Cluster Governing Early Defense Against Fusarium Wilt in Sea Iland Cotton
Provisionally accepted
- 1College of Agriculture, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi, China
- 2Engineering Research Centre of Cotton, Ministry of Education, Urumqi, China
- 3Institute of Forest Ecology and Landscaping, Xinjiang Academy of Forestry Sciences, Urumqi, China
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Fusarium wilt, caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum 7 (FOV7), poses a major threat to the production of elite Sea Island cotton (Gossypium barbadense). To uncover the molecular basis of defense FOV7 in cotton, we employed RNA sequencing to identify numerous differentially expressed genes across various stages of infection. Subsequent K-means clustering and weighted gene co-expression network analysis revealed a core module significantly enriched in defense response and abscisic acid-activated signaling pathways. A detailed examination of the gene distribution within these pathways identified 10 out of 50 genes as members of the Pathogenesis-Related 10 (PR10) gene family. Evolutionary analysis of these PR10 genes uncovered a tandemly-expanded gene cluster located on chromosome 10 of the D sub-genome. In addition, root cell type maps constructed via single-nucleus RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq) enabled pinpointing FOV7 response in the root epidermis, where GbD_PR10.11 was identified as a specifically activated sentinel. Our work, by logically progressing from genome-wide patterns to a single gene in a single cell type, not only deciphers a key component of the cotton-pathogen arms race but also delivers a high-confidence target for engineering frontline resistance.
Keywords: Gossypium barbadense, FOV7, Transcriptome, PR10, Tandem duplication, single-nucleus RNA sequencing
Received: 02 May 2025; Accepted: 21 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Wang, Zhang, Liu, Liu, Gu and Bai. 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:
Aixing Gu, gax@xjau.edu.cn
Jianyu Bai, bjyhao2010@sina.com
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