Agriculture & Food, Volume 7, 2019

Abstract: Anthracnose of tea plant (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze), caused by the fungus Colletotrichum genus, is the major leaf disease in China. To verify the gene molecular characterization, the pathogenesis-related protein 1 (CsPR1) gene was cloned from two tea cultivars. The full length cDNA of CsPR1 consists of 483 bp open reading frame (ORF) encoding a polypeptide with 160 amino acids. Sequence alignment against National Center for Biotechnology Information Search database (NCBI) showed that CsPR1 shared 99.38%, 71.43%, 67.50% homology identity with Camellia sinensis reference genome ‘shuchazao’, Vitis vinifera and Quercus suber, respectively. It contains a dominate domain superfamily of CAP (cysteine-rich secretory proteins, antigen 5, and pathogenesis-related 1 proteins) domain, which accumulates after pathogen infection. The qRT-PCR results revealed that the gene expression level of CsPR1 was remarkably increased in infected groups compared to control. The resistance cultivar accumulated a higher level protein encoded by CsPR1 than that of susceptible cultivars. These results suggest that CsPR1 plays a critical role in the interaction between host tea plant and Colletotrichum, as well as acts as a signal or a defense marker associated with anthracnose resistance in tea plant.