Figure 5: Defense gene expression in Trichoderma atroviride-primed tomato plant progeny.

Total RNA extracted from two-week-old F1 plants, derived from split-root tomato plants subjected to the five treatments indicated in Fig. 1. cDNA was subjected to qPCR to quantify LOX1, PR1, TPX1, LERBOH1, LECHS2, MYC2, NPR1, ERF1 and ARF1 gene expression. The actin gene was used as a control. Values correspond to relative measurements against the respective control condition (w/w) (2^−ΔΔCT = 1) and are expressed as log₁₀. Error bars represent standard deviations of the mean values for three technical replicates of cDNA from two independent experiments. Each cDNA was obtained from ten different F1 plants for each treatment. The levels of expression were tested using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey’s test. For each gene different letters represent significative differences (P < 0.05).