Project description:Purpose: Transcriptional profiling of Oryza sativa japonica Nipponbare roots after one, three and seven days post inoculation with Azoarcus olearius BH72 (vs. non-inoculated controls) to understand the changes in transcriptomic response of rice roots to colonization by bacterial endophyte at initial stages of interaction; Additional set-up was included in which bacterial growth was boosted (through increasing 20-times carbon source - malic acid in the plant's hydroponic medium) to study rice roots transcriptome during enhanced colonization by the endophyte after three days post inoculation. Methods: Rice root mRNA profiles after one day, three days (including additional set-ups for boosted colonization), and seven days post inoculation with Azoarcus olearius BH72 and corresponding non-inoculated controls were generated by RNA sequencing, in triplicates, using Illumina NextSeq 500. Raw reads were then filtered, trimmed (PHRED > 33) and mapped onto IRGSP-1 version of Oryza sativa ssp. japonica cv. Nipponbare genome using CLC Genomics Workbench 8.5.1 (Qiagen, Germany). Expression of 17 selected genes was confirmed via RT-qPCR. Results: Using the RNA-Seq technology we obtained transcriptomic data from 24 sequencing libraries, with an average 46,181,160 clean reads per library, of which 87% or more were mapped onto the Oryza sativa ssp. japonica cv. Nipponbare IRGSP-1.0 genome (Fig. S3). We considered genes as differentially regulated (DEG) that exhibited at least 1.5-fold-change in expression level between Azo-colonized and non-colonized roots and FDR<0.05. Conclusions: Bacteria appeared to short-circuit the initial root defense responses for a compatible interaction during endophytic establishment, involving previously unknown putative rice candidate genes.
