Integrated full-length transcriptome and metabolome analysis of the early defense mechanisms in Paulownia witches’ broom disease

ABSTRACT Paulownia witches’ broom (PaWB) is a devastating disease of Paulownia spp. caused by phytoplasma infection. To reveal the reason for the absence of morphological changes at the early stage of phytoplasma infection, in this study, a combination of second-and third-generation sequencing (single-molecule real-time long-read isoform) and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry were performed to analyse the changes of full-length transcripts and metabolites at the early stage of phytoplasma infection. A total of 140,528 non-redundant full-length transcripts, 597 transcription factors, 1,658 long non-coding RNAs, and 645 metabolites were identified. The third-generation sequencing improved the annotation of the reference Paulownia fortunei (Seem.) Hemsl. genome by 8.86%. Combination analysis of the full-length transcriptome and metabolome revealed that phenolics and phenylalanine ammonia-lyase synthesis related genes were significantly up-regulated in the early stage of phytoplasma-infected P. fortunei. Based on the results of full-length transcriptome and metabolome integrative analysis, we constructed an early defence model diagram of PaWB disease. Our results provide powerful insights into the reason for absence of morphological at the early stage of phytoplasma infection.