Plant–parasitic root-knot nematode Meloidogyne incognita uses an array of effector proteins to establish successful plant infections. Mi-msp-1 and Mi-msp-20 are two known effectors secreted from nematode subventral oesophageal glands; Mi-msp-1 being a putative secretory venom allergen AG5-like protein, whereas Mi-msp-20 is a pioneer gene with a coiled-coil motif. Expression of specific effector is known to cause disturbances in the expression of other effectors. Here, we used RNA-Seq to investigate the pleiotropic effects of silencing Mi-msp-1 and Mi-msp-20. A total of 25.1–51.9 million HQ reads generated from Mi-msp-1 and Mi-msp-20 silenced second-stage juveniles (J2s) along with freshly hatched J2s were mapped to an already annotated M. incognita proteome to understand the impact on various nematode pathways. As compared to control, silencing of Mi-msp-1 caused differential expression of 29 transcripts, while Mi-msp-20 silencing resulted in differential expression of a broader set of 409 transcripts. In the Mi-msp-1 silenced J2s, cytoplasm (GO:0005737) was the most enriched gene ontology (GO) term, whereas in the Mi-msp-20 silenced worms, embryo development (GO:0009792), reproduction (GO:0000003) and nematode larval development (GO:0002119) were the most enriched terms. Limited crosstalk was observed between these two effectors as a sheer 5.9% of the up-regulated transcripts were common between Mi-msp-1 and Mi-msp-20 silenced nematodes. Our results suggest that in addition to the direct knock-down caused by silencing of Mi-msp-1 and Mi-msp-20, the cascading effect on other genes might also be contributing to a reduction in nematode's parasitic abilities.

植物寄生根结线虫南方根结线虫使用一系列效应蛋白来建立成功的植物感染。Mi-msp-1和Mi-msp-20是两种已知的由线虫腹下食管腺分泌的效应物；Mi-msp-1是一种推定的分泌性毒液过敏原 AG5 样蛋白，而Mi-msp-20是具有卷曲螺旋基序的先驱基因。已知特定效应子的表达会引起其他效应子表达的干扰。在这里，我们使用 RNA-Seq 来研究沉默Mi-msp-1和Mi-msp-20的多效性。从Mi-msp-1和Mi-msp-20沉默的第二阶段幼虫 (J2s) 以及刚孵化的 J2s 被映射到已经注释的M. incognita蛋白质组，以了解对各种线虫途径的影响。与对照相比，Mi-msp-1 的沉默导致29 个转录本的差异表达，而Mi-msp-20沉默导致更广泛的 409 个转录本的差异表达。在Mi-msp-1沉默的 J2s 中，细胞质 (GO:0005737) 是最丰富的基因本体 (GO) 术语，而在Mi-msp-20沉默的蠕虫、胚胎发育 (GO:0009792)、繁殖 (GO:0000003) 和线虫幼虫发育 (GO:0002119) 是最丰富的术语。在这两个效应器之间观察到有限的串扰，因为在Mi-msp-1和Mi-msp-20沉默的线虫之间，上调的转录本中有 5.9% 是常见的。我们的结果表明，除了由Mi-msp-1和Mi-msp-20的沉默引起的直接敲低外，对其他基因的级联效应也可能有助于降低线虫的寄生能力。