Eco-friendly Disease Management in Cucumber

Vaishnavi Kardale, Bioinformatics Centre, Savitribai Phule Pune University

Farming is known to be unpredictable. Unseasonal rains, droughts, floods are some of the natural calamities farmers have to face. Apart from this acidic soil, nutrient deficiency, humidity, temperature fluctuations are some of the abiotic factors that have an impact on yield. To top it up, frequent attacks from pathogens and pests make farming highly laborious and demanding. Farmers have to bear blows from all of these factors. While natural calamities are out of the hands of mankind; abiotic and biotic factors affecting agriculture can be controlled. Widely used methods involve the use of chemicals to get rid of pathogens and manipulate soil components to fit the requirement of the crop. However promising these methods to seem, they have adverse effects on health and the environment. Organic farming is cultivating crops using biological resources and getting rid of synthetic materials altogether. Recent research looks at eco-friendly disease management to overcome fungal infection in cucumbers.

What’s wrong with traditional methods?

Powdery mildew is a habitual fungal disease caused by cucumbers that affect the quality and yield of the fruit. Fungicide, flusilazole, and potassium salts are commonly used to counter the powdery mildew fungal infection. But these chemicals affect human health after consumption and deteriorate the soil microenvironment. It may leach into water resources affecting aquatic life. The downsides of using synthetic material in agriculture have stressed the development of organic and eco-friendly disease management methods.

What’s up with cucumbers?

LecRLK (Lectin Receptor-like Kinase) genes are known to help with a plant’s immune response. Previous studies have shown them to do so in rice and Arabidopsis. New research suggests that some LecRLK may function against biotic stress tolerance in cucumbers. It focuses on identifying the LecRLK gene and its expression pattern in cucumbers to better understand the plant’s innate defense against biotic stress. This can be very helpful in the generation of a breeding program for developing a powdery mildew-resistant cucumber hybrid.

How does it work?

The cell surface plays a crucial role in cellular signaling. LecRLK is membrane-bound proteins that play a key role in response to biotic and abiotic stress and developmental signs such as organogenesis, morphogenesis. It plays a role in innate immunity and hormone signaling in plants. They are also important in a plant’s response to necrotrophic and biotrophic pathogens. While biotrophic pathogens feed on live host cells, necrotrophic pathogenic infection leads to death in plant tissue leading to browning of stems and leaves and wilting.

What did the study show?

The study identified 60 cucumber LecRLK using genome-wide analysis. These 60 proteins were classified into two groups L-type and G-type based on domain composition and phylogenetic analysis. The genes were found to be present on seven chromosomes. Green fluorescence was observed on the plasma membrane of leaves indicating its subcellular location. Transcriptional profiling of Cucumber LecRLK showed that L-type has more functional redundancy than G-type. The qRT-PCR results indicated that both the L-type and G-type of Lec-RLK showed significant response against plant growth-promoting fungi (PGPF-Trichoderma harzianum), powdery mildew pathogen (PMP- Golovinomyces orontii), and a combination of PGPF and PPM treatment.

What next?

The results of this study show that the role of Lec-RLK against fungal infection is significant and therefore more experiments are needed to verify the L-type and G-type LecRLK’s function in plant-fungal interaction. The development of such eco-friendly disease management methods to solve abiotic and biotic stresses in agriculture is the need of the hour. It is virtuous for the health, environment and it just might put another bowl of salad on the dining table.

Also read: Takotsubo cardiomyopathy – “Breaking hearts” linked to Covid

Reference:

1. Haider, M.S.; De Britto, S.; Nagaraj, G.; Gurulingaiah, B.; Shekhar, R.; Ito, S.-i.; Jogaiah, S. Genome-Wide Identification, Diversification, and Expression Analysis of Lectin Receptor-Like Kinase (LecRLK) Gene Family in Cucumber under Biotic Stress. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2021, 22, 6585. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22126585

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