Fig. 3

Suppressing SlVPE3 enhances susceptibility of tomato fruit to B. cinerea. a Disease severity for fruit inoculated with B. cinerea at 35 days post-anthesis (dpa). Representative fruit at 3 days post-inoculation (dpi) for wild-type (WT) and SlVPE3 RNAi lines (3-4, 3-12, and 3-15) are shown. b Fungal growth during infection of tomato fruit at 35 dpa. Growth of B. cinerea at 3 dpi in infected WT and SlVPE3 RNAi fruit was measured based on expression levels of B. cinerea ACTIN 2 relative to tomato ACTIN gene. c Disease severity in fruit inoculated with B. cinerea at 44 dpa. Representative fruit at 3 dpi for WT and SlVPE3 RNAi lines (3-4, 3-12, and 3-15) are shown. d Fungal growth during infection of tomato fruit at 44 dpa. Growth of B. cinerea at 3 dpi in infected WT and SlVPE3 RNAi fruit was measured based on quantitative PCR amplification of B. cinerea ACTIN 2 relative to tomato ACTIN gene. Values are shown as the means ± standard deviation. Asterisks indicate significant differences (P < 0.05; t-test) between WT and SlVPE3 RNAi fruit at a given time point after inoculation