Fig. 4: Effect of methylation on CBB disease phenotypes in cassava.

A Normalized MeSWEET10a expression (y-axis, log10 scale) in WT and transgenic lines as determined by RT-qPCR. The cassava genes GTPb (Manes.09G086600) and PP2A4 (Manes.09G039900) were used as internal controls. Boxes are colored according to Xanthomonas treatment. Biological replicates (black dots) included in each background (x-axis) are as follows: n = 4, 9, 4, 5, 10 examined over four independent experiments. The n included in each treatment group for each background are consistent. Horizontal black line within boxes indicates the value of the median while the box limits indicate the 25th and 75th percentiles as determined by R software; whiskers extend 1.5 times the interquartile range (1.5 × IQR) from the 25th and 75th percentiles. Two-sided Welch’s t-test p values are noted above brackets within plot. B Representative images of water-soaking phenotype of leaves from TME419 WT and DMS3-ZF-expressing plants. Images were taken 4 days post-infection with either Xam668 (XamWT) or a Xam668 TAL20 deletion mutant (XamΔTAL20). Scale bar = 0.5 cm. C Observed area (pixels, y-axis) of water-soaking from images of Xam-infiltrated leaves (backgrounds, x-axis) 4 days post-infiltration. Images from (B) and Supplementary Fig. 11 are included in dataset. Calculated p values (Kolmogorov–Smirnov test) are shown above brackets within plot. D Intensity of water-soaking phenotype (y-axis) of region measured in (C). The negative mean gray-scale value for the water-soaked region relative to the average of the mock-treated samples within the same leaf is reported (see methods for details). Calculated p values (two-sided Kolmogorov–Smirnov test) are shown above brackets within plot. Both box plots: Biological replicates (black dots) included in each background (x-axis) are as follows: n = 24, 30, 24, 24, 24 examined over three independent experiments. Horizontal black line within boxes indicates the value of the median while the box limits indicate the 25th and 75th percentiles as determined by R software; whiskers extend 1.5 times the interquartile range (1.5 × IQR) from the 25th and 75th percentiles. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.