National Institute of Plant Genome Research

Virus-induced gene silencing is an useful tool for identifying genes involved in nonhost resistance of plants. We demonstrate the use of bacterial pathogens expressing GFPuv in identifying gene silenced plants susceptible to nonhost pathogens. This approach is easy, fast and facilitates large scale screening and similar protocol can be applied to studying various other plant-microbe interactions.

This study presents methodologies to study the pathomorphological and molecular mechanisms underlying chickpea–Rhizoctonia bataticola interaction. The blotting paper method is useful to rapidly study chickpea genotype responses, while the sick pot-based method can be used to simultaneously impose drought and R. bataticola infection and screen for tolerant genotypes.