Genome-wide identification and transcriptomic analysis of MAPK family provides insights into molecular basis of disease resistance of postharvest eggplant in response to Botrytis cinerea

Wenxuan Zhang¹Yucheng Ming²Dongchao Ji^1*

• ¹Shandong University of Technology, Zibo, China
• ²Qilu Medical University, Zibo, China

As the main economic crops and food supply, eggplant (Solanum melongena) confronts severe gray mold rot caused by Botrytis cinerea, resulting in huge postharvest damage every year. Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades, classical and important signal transduction pathway, were identified in many species and proved to be involved in plant growth, development and immune response, while our knowledge of this cascades in eggplant is scarce. In this work, based on the state-of-art genome sequencing data, the MAPK cascades of eggplant were identified. The result showed that there were 117 MAP3Ks, 5 MAP2Ks and 16 MAPKs in the eggplant genome. All the proteins possessed traditional MAPK domains. Phylogenetic and collinear analysis showed that eggplant MAPKs had homologous ones with Arabidopsis and tomato. Cis acting element analysis indicated that eggplant MAPKs may participate defense and stress responsiveness. Meanwhile, transcriptomic analysis of postharvest eggplant after Botrytis cinerea infection showed that most of the MAPK genes had altered expression, further functional assays indicate that SmMAP3K38 likely operates as a negative regulator of eggplant immunity against Botrytis cinerea infection, which provides us new insights into molecular basis of this important crop in disease resistance to Botrytis cinerea, and gives us new potential targets for the prevention and control of gray mold.