Identification of a bio-signature for barley resistance against Pyrenophora teres infection based on physiological, molecular and sensor-based phenotyping

Necrotic and chlorotic symptoms induced during Pyrenophora teres infection in barley leaves indicate a compatible interaction that allows the hemi-biotrophic fungus Pyrenophora teres to colonise the host. However, it is unexplored how this fungus affects the physiological responses of resistant and susceptible cultivars during infection. To assess the degree of resistance in four different cultivars, we quantified visible symptoms and fungal DNA and performed expression analyses of genes involved in plant defence and ROS scavenging. To obtain insight into the interaction between fungus and host, we determined the activity of 19 key enzymes of carbohydrate and antioxidant metabolism. The pathogen impact was also phenotyped non-invasively by sensor-based multireflectance and -fluorescence imaging. Symptoms, regulation of stress-related genes and pathogen DNA content distinguished the cultivar Guld as being resistant. Severity of net blotch symptoms was also strongly correlated with the dynamics of enzyme activities already within the first day of infection. In contrast to the resistant cultivar, the three susceptible cultivars showed a higher reflectance over seven spectral bands and higher fluorescence intensities at specific excitation wavelengths. The combination of semi high-throughput physiological and molecular analyses with non-invasive phenotyping enabled the identification of bio-signatures that discriminates the resistant from susceptible cultivars.

Plant phenomics and the need for physiological phenotyping across scales to narrow the genotype-to-phenotype knowledge gap

Plants are affected by complex genome×environment×management interactions which determine phenotypic plasticity as a result of the variability of genetic components. Whereas great advances have been made in the cost-efficient and high-throughput analyses of genetic information and non-invasive phenotyping, the large-scale analyses of the underlying physiological mechanisms lag behind. The external phenotype is determined by the sum of the complex interactions of metabolic pathways and intracellular regulatory networks that is reflected in an internal, physiological, and biochemical phenotype. These various scales of dynamic physiological responses need to be considered, and genotyping and external phenotyping should be linked to the physiology at the cellular and tissue level. A high-dimensional physiological phenotyping across scales is needed that integrates the precise characterization of the internal phenotype into high-throughput phenotyping of whole plants and canopies. By this means, complex traits can be broken down into individual components of physiological traits. Since the higher resolution of physiological phenotyping by 'wet chemistry' is inherently limited in throughput, high-throughput non-invasive phenotyping needs to be validated and verified across scales to be used as proxy for the underlying processes. Armed with this interdisciplinary and multidimensional phenomics approach, plant physiology, non-invasive phenotyping, and functional genomics will complement each other, ultimately enabling the in silico assessment of responses under defined environments with advanced crop models. This will allow generation of robust physiological predictors also for complex traits to bridge the knowledge gap between genotype and phenotype for applications in breeding, precision farming, and basic research.