Preliminary investigation of glyphosate resistance mechanism in giant ragweed using transcriptome analysis

Abstract

Giant ragweed ( Ambrosia trifida ) is a highly competitive annual weed prevalent mainly in the United States across the eastern Corn Belt. Glyphosate has been a key herbicide to help tackle the spread of giant ragweed in the past few decades. Recently, there have been reports of widespread resistance to glyphosate in giant ragweed, with the mechanism of resistance yet to be determined. We designed a single-replicate RNA sequencing experiment to study the genes differentially expressed between glyphosate-resistant and glyphosate-sensitive biotypes of giant ragweed. We used a de novo assembly of the giant ragweed transcriptome to determine key marker genes that could help explain the mechanism of resistance.