Tomato contrasting genotypes responses under combined salinity and viral stresses

Abstract

Tomato yellow leaf curl disease (TYLCD) and salinity stress adversely affect tomato production worldwide by causing extensive damages. In Tunisia, identifying TYLCD resistant cultivars selected in different environments is useful to devise counter-measures. To this end, 20 tomato commercial cultivars were screened for different Ty gene alleles' combinations and evaluated either for TYLCD incidence or salinity constraint. We built a biological multi-layer network for integrating, visualizing and modelling generated data. It is a simple representation view linking allelic combinations to tomato cultivars behaviour under viral and salt stresses. In addition, we analyzed differential expression of transcriptions factors (TFs) belonging to WRKY and ERF families in selected resistant (R) and susceptible (S) tomato cultivars. Gene expression was evaluated for short-and long stress exposure to either TYLCSV infection or to both viral and salinity stresses. Evidence is that TFs promote resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses through a complex regulatory network.

The effect of soil salinity and pepino mosaic virus infection on the expression of tomato defence‐related genes

“…The majority of combined abiotic and biotic stress studies to date have focused on fungal and bacterial pathogens. Relevant data from plant virus infections remain scarce, and a few studies have suggested that combined abiotic stresses (e.g., high temperatures, salinity) can enable plant viruses to overcome host resistance (Gharsallah et al, 2020; Moury et al, 1998; Varela et al, 2019). On the other hand, some recent studies have painted a far more complex picture for virus–abiotic stress interactions, with viral infection delaying drought response and enhancing plant survival in rice (Encabo et al, 2020) and Arabidopsis (Berges et al, 2020), respectively.…”