Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is one of the most important legumes infected with many pathogens including fungal pathogens. One of the most important devastating fungal pathogens in chickpea is Ascochyta rabiei (Pass.) Labr. which causes up to 100% reduction in yield. In the present work, the expression patterns of AFP-ca, CaD2, LRR and PGIP genes were studied in response to Ascochyta rabiei in two susceptible and resistant chickpea genotypes. The experimental system was conducted in greenhouse, for both inoculated and mock-inoculated plants (control). RNA was isolated from Icc 12004 (resistant) and FLIP 82-150c (susceptible) genotypes in 0, 6, 12, 24, 48, 72 and 96 h after inoculation. The expression of the genes was measured in susceptible and resistant plants via semiquantitative RT-PCR. Results showed higher expression of all three genes in resistant genotype compared with susceptible one. Results showed that the candidate genes from antimicrobial families (CaD2 and AFP-ca) were up-regulated in resistant genotypes at early hours after inoculation (6–24 hpi), and also for PGIP from galacturonase-inhibiting protein families, the maximum expression was observed at early hours of inoculation to 48 hpi. In general, we concluded that all genes studied in this investigation contribute to plant–pathogen interaction and all of them can increase the resistance responses to Ascochyta blight disease.
