*4.7. Plant Materials and Inoculation with Phytophthora capsici Strains*

Pepper cultivar AA3, as well as *P. capsici* strains were obtained from the Laboratory of Vegetable Plant Biotechnology and Germplasm Innovation, Northwest A&F University-China. The method used for *P. capsici* inoculation was same as described by Khan et al. (2018) and Zhang et al. (2016) [61,77]. The root samples were amassed 0, 6, 12, 24, 48 and 72 h post inoculation (hpi) of *P. capsici*. For tissue specific expression, samples were collected from roots, stems, leaves, flower, green fruits, red fruits and seeds of untreated pepper plant for RNA extraction and qRT-PCR analysis [76,77].
