Conservation of antiviral defences in the non-vascular plant Marchantia polymorpha

Most of our current knowledge about the molecular events ruling plant-virus interaction come from studies focusing on vascular plants. We here characterized the molecular, cellular and physiological events goberning plant-virus interactions in the non-vascular liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. 2 weeks old Marchantia plants grown in sterile conditions were incubated with sap from either WT or TMV infected tobacco plants. Two weeks after, samples were collected from infected areas (TMV samples) and anatomically equivalent areas from mock plants (Mock samples). RNA was isolated from 4 pools. mRNA enriched libraries were prepared using Illumina TrueSeq kit and following instructions from manufacturer.