From root to shoot: quantifying nematode tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana by high-throughput phenotyping of plant development

Abstract

Nematode migration, feeding site formation, withdrawal of plant assimilates, and activation of plant defence responses have a significant impact on plant growth and development. Plants display intraspecific variation in tolerance limits for root-feeding nematodes. Although disease tolerance has been recognized as a distinct trait in biotic interactions of mainly crops, we lack mechanistic insights. Progress is hampered by difficulties in quantification and laborious screening methods. We turned to the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, since it offers extensive resources to study the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying nematode-plant interactions. Through imaging of tolerance-related parameters, the green canopy area was identified as an accessible and robust measure for assessing damage due to cyst nematode infection. Subsequently, a high-throughput phenotyping platform simultaneously measuring the green canopy area growth of 960 A. thaliana plants was developed. This platform can accurately measure cyst nematode and root-knot nematode tolerance limits in A. thaliana through classical modelling approaches. Furthermore, real-time monitoring provided data for a novel view of tolerance, identifying a compensatory growth response. These findings show that our phenotyping platform will enable a new mechanistic understanding of tolerance to below-ground biotic stress.

Plant phenotyping relevance

根圏線虫感染による植物の耐性を定量化するため、画像による緑色キャノピー面積の測定と、960個体を同時測定する高スループット表現型解析プラットフォームを開発しており、表現型取得法が研究の中心である。

Code and data availability

The paper's authors publicly deposited the full plant image dataset (green canopy phenotyping pictures) on figshare and the analysis code/model (SYLM and R growth analysis scripts) on a WUR GitLab repository, both explicitly linked in the Data availability statement.