Abstract

Plant-parasitic nematodes are an important group of plant pathogens that threaten current and future food security. Among them, the cyst nematodes parasitize some of the most important crop species. To cause disease, cyst nematodes inject effector proteins into the plant, produced primarily in either the dorsal or sub-ventral glands. In order to identify the genetic signatures and corresponding readers of gene expression in different gland cell and at different times of infection, we used Pacbio DNA -seq and Illumina RNA -seq to reconstruct the genome and lifestage-specific transcriptome of Heterodera schachtii infecting the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. We then combined this transcriptome-wide analysis of temporal expression with a gland cell specific RNAseq dataset to identify candidate regulators of the gland cells. This led to the identification of a transcription factor regulating the subventral gland, coined the SUGR . Functional analysis of the SUGR reveals it regulates a set of known and candidate subventral gland effectors as well as additional transcription factors. This suggests the SUGR is part of a cascade of regulation involved in plant penetration, consistent with the reduction in plant penetration observed after RNAi-mediated silencing of the SUGR -encoding gene. Finally, the SUGR -encoding gene expression gets either activated or inhibited by plant-derived signals that remain to be identified, shedding light on potential control strategies.

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