Comparative analysis of gene expression of Ty-1 hybrid and non-hybrid tomatoes exposed to tomato yellow leaf curl virus strains

Tomato (S. lycopersicum) is an economically important vegetable food crop and threatened by TYLCV, a devastating pathogen throughout the world. In the present study, we analyzed differential gene expression in response to TYLCV-IL and TYLCV-Mld (Begomovirus, Geminiviridae) viral strains infection in the Ty-1 tomato hybrids (Esns1) and non-hybrid tomato (P1788) accessions. cDNA microarray hybridization was used to detect a group of genes that were differentially expressed in Esns1infected with TYLCV strains at 18 days post inoculation. The microarray analysis recognized significantly changed expression of different gene targets. Additional analysis confirmed that 43 genes were significantly up-regulated and 7 were down-regulated in the Esns1against compared to P1788 with TYLCV strains. Overall, major differences in gene expression were characterized by major physiological functions containing pathogen, defense, photosynthesis, cell wall or growth, metabolic, stress, biosynthetic and signaling-related responses. This is the first comparative genome-wide transcriptional study of the expression of Esns1plants depicting diverse responses to biotic stress induced by TYLCV-IL and TYLCV-Mld. Additionally, this study also provides sufficient knowledge into the identification of key defense-related genes in tomato for TYLCV disease management.