Analysis of genes expressed during pepper-Phytophthora capsici interaction

Phytophthora capsici is a pathogen on several economically important crops including pepper. In pepper growing areas in Korea, Phytophthora blight caused by p. capsici has been considered as the most serious problem in pepper production. The Oomycete attacks the roots, stems, leaves and fruits of the plant. To understand the molecular mechanisms involved in the disease development, the genes expressed doting pepper p. capsici interaction were explored by analyzing expressed sequence tags (ESTs). A complementary DNA (cDNA) library was constructed from total RNA extracted from pepper leaves challenged with p. capsici for 3 days resulting in early stage of symptom development. The comprehensive analysis on the single pass sequencing of over 4000 randomly selected cDNA clones with contig assembly, unique gene extraction, sequence comparison, and functional categorizing will be presented with an emphasis on the genes involved in plant defense and pathogenicity during disease development of the pepper Phytophthora blight.