Browsing by Author "Blanco-Herrera, Francisca"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Identification of grapevine clones via high-throughput amplicon sequencing: a proof-of-concept study
    (2023) Urra, Claudio; Sanhueza, Dayan; Pavez, Catalina; Tapia, Patricio; Nunez-Lillo, Gerardo; Minio, Andrea; Miossec, Matthieu; Blanco-Herrera, Francisca; Gainza, Felipe; Castro, Alvaro; Cantu, Dario; Meneses, Claudio
    Wine cultivars are available to growers in multiple clonal selections with agronomic and enological differences. Phenotypic differences between clones originated from somatic mutations that accrued over thousands of asexual propagation cycles. Genetic diversity between grape cultivars remains unexplored, and tools to discriminate unequivocally clones have been lacking. This study aimed to uncover genetic variations among a group of clonal selections of 4 important Vitis vinifera cultivars: Cabernet sauvignon, Sauvignon blanc, Chardonnay, and Merlot, and use this information to develop genetic markers to discriminate the clones of these cultivars. We sequenced with short-read sequencing technology the genomes of 18 clones, including biological replicates for a total of 46 genomes. Sequences were aligned to their respective cultivar's reference genome for variant calling. We used reference genomes of Cabernet sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Merlot and developed a de novo genome assembly of Sauvignon blanc using long-read sequencing. On average, 4 million variants were detected for each clone, with 74.2% being single nucleotide variants and 25.8% being small insertions or deletions (InDel). The frequency of these variants was consistent across all clones. From these variants, we validated 46 clonal markers using high-throughput amplicon sequencing for 77.7% of the evaluated clones, most of them small InDel. These results represent an advance in grapevine genotyping strategies and will benefit the viticulture industry for the characterization and identification of the plant material.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Metabolite Profiling Reveals the Effect of Cold Storage on Primary Metabolism in Nectarine Varieties with Contrasting Mealiness
    (2023) Olmedo, Patricio; Zepeda, Baltasar; Delgado-Rioseco, Joaquin; Leiva, Carol; Moreno, Adrian A.; Sagredo, Karen; Blanco-Herrera, Francisca; Pedreschi, Romina; Infante, Rodrigo; Meneses, Claudio; Campos-Vargas, Reinaldo
    Chilling injury is a physiological disorder caused by cold storage in peaches and nectarines. The main symptom of chilling injury is mealiness/wooliness, described as a lack of juice in fruit flesh. In this work, we studied two nectarine varieties (Andes Nec-2 and Andes Nec-3) with contrasting susceptibility to mealiness after cold storage. A non-targeted metabolomic analysis was conducted by GC-MS to understand if changes in metabolite abundance are associated with nectarine mealiness induced by cold storage. Multivariate analyses indicated that in unripe nectarines, cold storage promoted a higher accumulation of amino acids in both varieties. Interestingly, for ripe nectarines, cold storage induced an accumulation of fewer amino acids in both varieties and showed an increased abundance of sugars and organic acids. A pathway reconstruction of primary metabolism revealed that in ripe nectarines, cold storage disrupted metabolite abundance in sugar metabolism and the TCA cycle, leading to a differential accumulation of amino acids, organic acids, and sugars in mealy and juicy nectarines.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Molecular and Genomic Characterization of the Pseudomonas syringae Phylogroup 4: An Emerging Pathogen of Arabidopsis thaliana and Nicotiana benthamiana
    (2022) Zavala, Diego; Fuenzalida, Isabel; Gangas, Maria Victoria; Margutti, Micaela Peppino; Bartoli, Claudia; Roux, Fabrice; Meneses, Claudio; Herrera-Vasquez, Ariel; Blanco-Herrera, Francisca
    Environmental fluctuations such as increased temperature, water availability, and air CO2 concentration triggered by climate change influence plant disease dynamics by affecting hosts, pathogens, and their interactions. Here, we describe a newly discovered Pseudomonas syringae strain found in a natural population of Arabidopsis thaliana collected from the southwest of France. This strain, called Psy RAYR-BL, is highly virulent on natural Arabidopsis accessions, Arabidopsis model accession Columbia 0, and tobacco plants. Despite the severe disease phenotype caused by the Psy RAYR-BL strain, we identified a reduced repertoire of putative Type III virulence effectors by genomic sequencing compared to P. syringae pv tomato (Pst) DC3000. Furthermore, hopBJ1(Psy) is found exclusively on the Psy RAYR-BL genome but not in the Pst DC3000 genome. The plant expression of HopBJ1(Psy) induces ROS accumulation and cell death. In addition, HopBJ1(Psy) participates as a virulence factor in this plant-pathogen interaction, likely explaining the severity of the disease symptoms. This research describes the characterization of a newly discovered plant pathogen strain and possible virulence mechanisms underlying the infection process shaped by natural and changing environmental conditions.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    The TGA Transcription Factors from Clade II Negatively Regulate the Salicylic Acid Accumulation in Arabidopsis
    (2022) Fonseca, Alejandro; Urzua, Tomas; Jelenska, Joanna; Sbarbaro, Christopher; Seguel, Aldo; Duarte, Yorley; Greenberg, Jean T.; Holuigue, Loreto; Blanco-Herrera, Francisca; Herrera-Vasquez, Ariel
    Salicylic acid (SA) is a hormone that modulates plant defenses by inducing changes in gene expression. The mechanisms that control SA accumulation are essential for understanding the defensive process. TGA transcription factors from clade II in Arabidopsis, which include the proteins TGA2, TGA5, and TGA6, are known to be key positive mediators for the transcription of genes such as PR-1 that are induced by SA application. However, unexpectedly, stress conditions that induce SA accumulation, such as infection with the avirulent pathogen P. syringae DC3000/AvrRPM1 and UV-C irradiation, result in enhanced PR-1 induction in plants lacking the clade II TGAs (tga256 plants). Increased PR-1 induction was accompanied by enhanced isochorismate synthase-dependent SA production as well as the upregulation of several genes involved in the hormone's accumulation. In response to avirulent P. syringae, PR-1 was previously shown to be controlled by both SA-dependent and -independent pathways. Therefore, the enhanced induction of PR-1 (and other defense genes) and accumulation of SA in the tga256 mutant plants is consistent with the clade II TGA factors providing negative feedback regulation of the SA-dependent and/or -independent pathways. Together, our results indicate that the TGA transcription factors from clade II negatively control SA accumulation under stress conditions that induce the hormone production. Our study describes a mechanism involving old actors playing new roles in regulating SA homeostasis under stress.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Transcriptome and Gene Regulatory Network Analyses Reveal New Transcription Factors in Mature Fruit Associated with Harvest Date in Prunus persica
    (2022) Nunez-Lillo, Gerardo; Perez-Reyes, Wellasmin; Riveros, Anibal; Lillo-Carmona, Victoria; Rothkegel, Karin; Miguel Alvarez, Jose; Blanco-Herrera, Francisca; Pedreschi, Romina; Campos-Vargas, Reinaldo; Meneses, Claudio
    Harvest date is a critical parameter for producers and consumers regarding agro-industrial performance. It involves a pleiotropic effect controlling the development of other fruit quality traits through finely controlling regulatory mechanisms. Fruit ripening is a process in which various signals and biological events co-occur and are regulated by hormone signaling that produces the accumulation/degradation of multiple compounds. However, the regulatory mechanisms that control the hormone signaling involved in fruit development and ripening are still unclear. To investigate the issue, we used individuals with early, middle and late harvest dates from a peach segregating population to identify regulatory candidate genes controlling fruit quality traits at the harvest stage and validate them in contrasting peach varieties for this trait. We identified 467 and 654 differentially expressed genes for early and late harvest through a transcriptomic approach. In addition, using the Arabidopsis DAP-seq database and network analysis, six transcription factors were selected. Our results suggest significant hormonal balance and cell wall composition/structure differences between early and late harvest samples. Thus, we propose that higher expression levels of the transcription factors HB7, ERF017 and WRKY70 in early harvest individuals would induce the expression of genes associated with the jasmonic acid pathway, photosynthesis and gibberellins inhibition. While on the other hand, the high expression levels of LHY, CDF3 and NAC083 in late harvest individuals would promote the induction of genes associated with abscisic acid biosynthesis, auxins and cell wall remodeling.