Co-optation of Transcription Factors Drives Evolution of Quantitative Disease Resistance Against a Necrotrophic Pathogen.

Wild crop relatives exhibit diverse levels of quantitative disease resistance (QDR), but the underlying genomic and regulatory factors remain unclear.In particular, whether QDR against generalist necrotrophic pathogens evolved via conserved or species-specific regulatory networks is unknown.In a previous study, we examined the QDR diversity in wild Solanum species using digital high-resolution phenotyping technology.Here, we examined the transcriptomic responses of five diverse wild tomato (Solanum) species spanning a QDR gradient using differential gene expression analysis, gene regulatory network analysis and weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA).We find that species-specific regulatory features, encompassing infection-induced and constitutively expressed genes, predominantly shape QDR levels.To further dissect the evolutionary dynamics of these regulatory patterns, we performed phylotranscriptomic analyses on gene regulatory networks. Conclusions