Fusarium head blight (FHB) caused by the fungal pathogen Fusarium graminearum is one of the most
devastating diseases in barley. However, effective resistance has not been
identified in barley germplasm. To enhance barley resistance to FHB, we used host-induced
gene silencing (HIGS) to target the F. graminearum histone acetyltransferase
gene FgGCN5 in the present study. In the
loss-of-function Fggcn5 mutant (ΔFgGCN5), acetylation levels of
histone H3 were significantly decreased at several specific lysins, leading to
a genome-wide differential expression and impaired metabolic processes
affecting pathogenicity of F. graminearum. Using Agrobacterium-mediated gene
transformation, we have generated transgenic plants and selected homozygous
transformants in the late generations. Despite demonstrated production of
small-interfering RNAs (siRNAs) homologous to FgGCN5 in the transgenic barley; the disease severity, DON
accumulation, and fungal biomass showed no significant difference from
wild-type. In line with these observations, quantitative revere transcription
PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis showed the expression levels of FgSCN5 were not
affected by the HIGS construct in the transgenic plants, indicating an inefficiency
of the generated siRNAs on silencing the target gene. This research allows for
more in-depth analysis for the use of HIGS against FHB. Follow-up
investigations with more independent transgenic lines are ongoing to address the
incompetence of HIGS targeting FgSCN5 to provide FHB resistance.