Abstract: Plants are the essential material basis for human survival. Plant diseases caused by soilborne pathogens are the most limiting factor and threat to plant health. In order to lay a theoretical foundation for the sustainable control of soilborne fungal disease, our research group has been studying the interaction between cotton and Verticillium dahliae, the most notorious soilborne pathogenic fungus causing wilt disease, and exploited cotton-V. dahliae as a model system to study the molecular mechanism of plant-soilborne fungus interaction. In this review, we brief introduce the basic concepts and the status on prevention of plant soilborne fungal diseases. We also summarize our progress in studying cotton-V. dahliae interaction from basic research to application and transformation in the last decade, and envisage prospect in the future work on plant protection against soilborne disease.

Key words: soilborne pathogenic fungi, cotton Verticillium wilt, trans-kingdom RNAi