Figure 1.
Pathogenic development of rice false smut.
(A) Phenotypes of rice false smut disease. Arrows in Fig. A indicate a mature false smut ball. (B) Early development of rice false smut disease. DS, means the diseased spikelets, and NS, means normal spikelets. (C–K) Cytological observation and electronic scanning of floral organs infected with U. virens. (C) Observation of the infected floral organs at stage S1. (D) Observation of the infected floral organs at stage S2. (E) Observation of the infected floral organs at stage S3. (F, I) SEM observation hyphae on style (stage 1). (G, J) SEM observation hyphae on stamen (stage 2). (H, K) SEM observation the innate of infected stamen at stage 3. Pi, indicates pistil; St, indicates stamen; Fo, represents “foot-like”structure; Fe, represents “feelers-like” structure. Co, represent “conidia”; Po, represent “pollen”. Bar = 1 cm in Fig. B, C, D, E; Bar = 100 μm in Fig. G, J; Bar = 10 μm in Fig. F, H, I, K.
Figure 2.
Integrative analysis of differentially expressed genes across both years.
(A) Differentially expressed genes monitored across both years. Numbers on the Y-axis represent the regulated gene numbers. (B) Functional categorization of the all differentially expressed genes across both years using MapMan software. (C) Verification of the special genes using RT-PCR amplification of the inoculated samples in 2012. PCR amplifications were carried out with 30 cycles, * showed Log2 values in 2010 and 2011 DGE data.
Table 1.
Analysis of the regulated genes in rice during infection of U. virens
Figure 3.
Comparison analysis of the special DE genes for rice among three stages.
Table 2.
Enriched stage-specific BP terms regulated by U. virens infection (FDR<0.05)
Figure 4.
Heat map of the stage-specific genes involved in BP terms of “protein modification” and “cell death”.
(A) Categories and heat map of “protein modification” genes. (B) Categories and heat map of “cell death” genes. Colours bar represent expression levels of each gene which are either up-regulated (red) or down-regulated (blue).
Table 3.
cis-elements identified in the promoter region of the specially regulated genes
Figure 5.
Expression pattern of seven uniquely responded genes under various stimuli.
(A) RT-PCR analysis under different biotic and abiotic stress factors. 0, 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, 36 and 48 represent the hours of treatment. CK means of the spikelets. UBI was used as internal control. (B) Tissue specific expression based on public Microarray database. An, anther; Mei, Meiotic stage; M1, pollen mother cells at meiotic leptotene stage; M2, pollen mother cells at meiotic zygotene-pachytene stage; M3, pollen mother cells at meiotic diplotene-tetrad stage; P1, uni-nucleate pollen; P2, bi-cellular pollen; P3, tri-cellular mature pollen. The scale is transcript abundance log2 normalised values.
Figure 6.
Content of soluble sugar and starch and expression of the related genes.
A–B, Content of soluble sugar and starch in spiklets. C–D, qRT-PCR for some key genes in starch metabolism and carbohydrate transformation. E–F, qRT-PCR for two sugar transporter. UBI was used as the internal control. *, **, *** represented 0.05, 0.01 and 0.001 significant difference to the control, respectively.
Figure 7.
Diagrams of the rice pollen development and infection of U. virens.
(A) Structural illustration of rice sheath at booting stage. Sh, Sheath; Le, lemma; Pa, palea; St, stamen. (B) Diagram of rice pollen development. E, epidermis; En, endothecium; ML, middle layer; T, tapetum; MMC, microspore mother cell; MC, meiotic cell; Tds, tetrads; UP, unicleate pollen; BP, bicellular pollen; TP, tricellular pollen.
Figure 8.
Biological process of rice plant response to the infection of U. virens.
Red arrow represents up-regulation BP terms; Blue arrow represents down-regulation BP terms.