Arabidopsis thaliana as a plant model to study plant pathogen interaction between Sporisorium scitamineum and sugarcane

Abstract

Sporisorium scitamineum is the causative agent of smut disease in sugarcane. Dimorphic and biotrophic basidiomycete fungus, dependent on the host for finalization of its reproductive cycle and production of telospores (2n). Previous studies have suggested that the fungus is able to modulate the flowering pathway of sugarcane already in the initial stages of infection, altering the expression of genes potentially associated with the sugarcane reproductive system. This hypothesis was proposed because of differential modulation of the expression of genes related to flowering from a few hours after inoculum of the pathogen until after the emission of the whip, the main symptom of the disease. The direction of the studies for the flowering pathways becomes fundamental in the understanding of the development of the symptoms of the disease in this sugar-cane-smut-pathosystem. However, due to the complexity of the sugarcane genome, too long time and restrictive needs for flowering, the study would become impracticable. Therefore, we propose the use of the Arabidopsis thaliana model plant for the study of key gene expression related to flowering path and meristematic function in A. thaliana during interaction with S. scitamineum. (AU)