Molecular Microbiology Research, 2025, Vol.15, No.2, 69-81 http://microbescipublisher.com/index.php/mmr 75 good growth, the lesion area was reduced, and the spread of the disease slowed down, further confirming the positive regulatory role of GhAMT2 in the disease resistance process (Wang et al., 2025). Figure 2 Effects of silencing of GhLAC15 on cotton susceptibility toVerticillium dahliae (Adopted from Zhang et al., 2019) Image caption: Two weeks after infiltration, seedlings were inoculated with V. dahliae. (a) Responses of control (CK) (TRV:00) and silenced (TRV: GhLAC15) plants to the pathogen at 20 days post-inoculation (dpi). Disease symptoms induced on CK and silenced plants with three experimental repeats. (b, c) Representative seedlings of CK and silenced plants after inoculation with V. dahliae at 20 dpi. (d) Seven-day-old cotton plants were infiltrated with Agrobacterium carrying TRV:GhCLA1. The photographs were taken at 2 weeks after infiltration. (e) Preliminary assay of the efficiency of virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) under our experimental conditions. (f, g) The disease index and rate of diseased plants were measuredat 20 dpi. Error bars represent the standard deviation of three biological replicates (n = 36); asterisks indicate statistically significant differences, as determinedbyt-test (P < 0.05). (h) Fifteen days after V. dahliae inoculation, surface-sterilized hypocotyl sections prepared from CK and silenced plants were placed on agar medium at 7 dpi. The number of stem sections from which fungus grew represented the extent of fungal colonization (Adopted from Zhang et al., 2019) The discovery of GhAMT2 provides a new molecular tool for breeding for Verticilliumwilt resistance. It shows high resistance stability under different genetic backgrounds and environmental conditions, and is expected to be used in MAS marker development and serve high-throughput disease-resistant material screening. In the non-transgenic breeding path, breeders can prioritize the selection of materials carrying favorable alleles of GhAMT2 for aggregate breeding; in the direction of genetic engineering, this gene can also be used as a potential insertion target to give commercial varieties stable and efficient resistance to Verticilliumwilt. Through in-depth research on GhAMT2, we have not only expanded our understanding of the role of ammonium transporters in plant disease resistance, but also provided a theoretical basis for developing new disease resistance mechanisms from the perspective of ion transport regulation. This case shows that the combination of genomic information and functional verification has become an indispensable technical path in modern cotton disease resistance breeding.
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