PROTEOME IMPACT ON MAIZE SILKS UNDER PRIMING STATE INDUCED BY TRICHODERMA ROOT COLONIZATION

Trichoderma species can stimulate local and distant immune responses in colonized plant tissues to prevent future pathogenic attacks. Priming of plant defenses is characterized by changes on transcriptional, metabolic, and epigenetic states after stimulus perception. We have previously investigated the transcriptional reprogramming in silk tissues from maize plants inoculated with Trichoderma atroviride and challenged with Fusarium verticillioides (Agostini et al 2019). To better understand about the molecular changes induced by T. atroviride in maize, a proteomic approach was conducted in this instance. Several proteins belonging to different metabolic categories were detected as priming involved proteins. However, we detected a very low correlation with those priming-modulated transcripts suggesting the importance of regulatory events posteriori of transcriptional stage to accomplish the final goal of blocking the pathogen entrance. Specifically, we focused on phenylpropanoid pathway; since we detected several proteins that are upregulated in priming state might explain the cell wall reinforcement and, the increase in the content of flavonoids and lignin in silks of maize plants after induced systemic resistance activation.