Figure 4
Silencing of either SlSR1 or SlSR3L resulted in enhanced disease resistance to B. cinerea . Two-week-old tomato seedlings were infiltrated with agrobacteria carrying pTRV2-SlSRs or pTRV2-GUS constructs and leaves were detached from pTRV2-GUS- or pTRV2-SlSR-infiltrated plants at 3 weeks after VIGS infiltration. Inoculation with B. cinerea was done by dropping 5 ?l of spore suspension (1 × 105 spores/ml). (A) Disease symptom on detached leaves at 3 days after inoculation. (B) Lesion size in leaves of the pTRV2-GUS- or pTRV2-SlSR-infiltrated plants at 4 days after inoculation. At least 10 leaves from ten individual plants were used for each experiment. (C) Growth of B. cinerea in inoculated plants from whole plant inoculation experiments. Fungal growth in planta was assumed at 3 and 4 days after inoculation by qRT-PCR analyzing the transcript level of B. cinerea BcActinA gene using SlActin gene as an internal control. Relative fungal growth was shown as folds of transcript levels of BcActin compared to SlActin. Data presented are the means ± SD from three independent experiments and different letters above the columns indicate significant differences at p?<?0.05 level.