Rice Pti1a negatively regulates RAR1-dependent defense responses

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) Pto encodes a protein kinase that confers resistance to bacterial speck disease. A second protein kinase, Pti1, physically interacts with Pto and is involved in Pto-mediated defense signaling. Pti1-related sequences are highly conserved among diverse plant species, including rice (Oryza sativa), but their functions are largely unknown. Here, we report the identification of a null mutant for the Pti1 homolog in rice and the functional characterization of Os Pti1a. The rice pti1a mutant was characterized by spontaneous necrotic lesions on leaves, which was accompanied by a series of defense responses and resistance against a compatible race of Magnaporthe grisea. Overexpression of Pti1a in rice reduced resistance against an incompatible race of the fungus recognized by a resistance (R) protein, Pish. Plants overexpressing Pti1a were also more susceptible to a compatible race of the bacterial pathogen Xanthomonas oryzae pv oryzae. These results suggest that Os Pti1a negatively regulates defense signaling for both R gene-mediated and basal resistance. We also demonstrated that repression of the rice RAR1 gene suppressed defense responses induced in the pti1a mutant, indicating that Pti1a negatively regulates RAR1-dependent defense responses. Expression of a tomato Pti1 cDNA in the rice pti1a mutant suppressed the mutant phenotypes. This contrasts strikingly with the previous finding that Sl Pti1 enhances Pto-mediated hypersensitive response (HR) induction when expressed in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), suggesting that the molecular switch controlling HR downstream of pathogen recognition has evolved differently in rice and tomato.     

Molecular mechanisms involved in bacterial speck disease resistance of tomato

An important recent advance in the field of plant-microbe interactions has been the cloning of genes that confer resistance to specific viruses, bacteria, fungi or nematodes. Disease resistance (R) genes encode proteins with predicted structural motifs consistent with them having roles in signal recognition and transduction. The future challenge is to understand how R gene products specifically perceive defence-eliciting signals from the pathogen and transduce those signals to pathways that lead to the activation of plant defence responses. In tomatoes, the Pto kinase (product of the Pto R gene) confers resistance to strains of the bacterial speck pathogen, Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato, that carry the corresponding avirulence gene avrPto. Resistance to bacterial speck disease is initiated by a mechanism involving the physical interaction of the Pto kinase and the AvrPto protein. This recognition event initiates signalling events that lead to defence responses including an oxidative burst, the hypersensitive response and expression of pathogenesis-related genes. Pto-interacting (Pti) proteins have been identified that appear to act downstream of the Pto kinase and our current studies are directed at elucidating the roles of these components.     

The major site of the pti1 kinase phosphorylated by the pto kinase is located in the activation domain and is required for pto-pti1 physical interaction.

The Pto and Pti1 serine/threonine protein kinases are key components of the signaling pathway leading to speck disease resistance in tomato. The two kinases physically interact in the yeast two-hybrid system, and Pto specifically phosphorylates Pti1 in vitro. In this study, we identified and characterized the major Pti1 site phosphorylated by Pto. Pto was expressed in Escherichia coli as a maltose-binding fusion protein (MBP-Pto), and used to phosphorylate in vitro a kinase deficient Pti1 protein fused to glutathione S-transferase (GST-Pti1[K96N]). The major phosphopeptide derived from trypsin digestion of phosphorylated GST-Pti1(K96N) was partially purified by reverse-phase HPLC and analyzed by matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry. Its mass corresponded to phosphopeptide LHSTR, which lies in the Pti1 kinase activation domain at amino acid position 230-234. By phosphoamino acid analysis, Thr233 was determined to be the phosphorylation site of peptide LHSTR. Mutations of Thr233 reduced dramatically Pti1 phosphorylation by MBP-Pto and Pti1 autophosphorylation, providing evidence that the same Pti1 site is involved in the two reactions. Moreover, phosphorylation of Thr233 appeared to be required for Pto-Pti1 physical interaction, as a mutation of this site to alanine, but not to aspartate, abolished the interaction between Pto and Pti1 in the yeast two-hybrid system.     

Two expressed soybean genes with high sequence identity to tomato Pti1 kinase lack autophosphorylation activity

An important signaling pathway for disease resistance in tomato involves the R gene product Pto which phosphorylates Ptil, a downstream member of this signaling cascade. Both Pto and Pti1 are Ser/Thr protein kinases capable of autophosphorylation in vitro. Two soybean (Glycine max L. Merr. var. Hobbit) cDNAs (sPti1a and sPti1b) were cloned and sequenced and found to each have 78% amino acid sequence identity with tomato Pti1. Glutathione S-transferase fusions of sPti1a and b expressed in Escherichia coli did not autophosphorylate in vitro, but were efficiently phosphorylated by tomato Pto. Replacement of Tyr197 with an Asp that is invariant at this position in other protein kinases did not restore autophosphorylation activity to sPti1a or b. Tyr197 was also present in the Pti1 homologues of three distant relatives of G. max. Together these results suggest that soybean Pti1 might function in a Pto-like signaling pathway that does not require Pti1 kinase activity.     

Alleles of Pto and Fen occur in bacterial speck-susceptible and fenthion-insensitive tomato cultivars and encode active protein kinases.

The Pto gene was derived originally from the wild tomato species Lycopersicon pimpinellifolium and confers resistance to Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato strains expressing the avirulence gene avrPto. The Fen gene is also derived from L. pimpinellifolium and confers sensitivity to the insecticide fenthion. We have now isolated and characterized the alleles of Pto and Fen from cultivated tomato, L. esculentum, and designated them pto and fen. High conservation of genome organization between the two tomato species allowed us to identify the pto and fen alleles from among the cluster of closely related Pto gene family members. The pto and fen alleles are transcribed and have uninterrupted open reading frames that code for predicted proteins that are 87 and 98% identical to the Pto and Fen protein kinases, respectively. In vitro autophosphorylation assays revealed that both the pto and fen alleles encode active kinases. In addition, the pto kinase phosphorylates a previously characterized substrate of Pto, the Pto-interacting Pti1 serine/threonine kinase. However, the pto kinase shows impaired interaction with Pti1 and with several previously isolated Pto-interacting proteins in the yeast two-hybrid system. The observation that pto and fen are active kinases and yet do not confer bacterial speck resistance or fenthion sensitivity suggests that the amino acid substitutions distinguishing them from Pto and Fen may interfere with recognition of the corresponding signal molecule or with protein-protein interactions involved in the Pto- and Fen-mediated signal transduction pathways.     

Avr/Cf互作诱发番茄Pto互作因子Pti编码基因的表达

植物抗病基因Pto和Cf产物具完全不同的结构域,其细胞定位也不同.二者决定的抗病性产生机制的异同令人关注.采用两种过敏性反应(hypersensitive response,HR)产生系统研究了Pto互作蛋白Pti4、Pti5和Pti6编码基因在Avr/Cf互作中的时序表达:(1)通过杂交方法获取同含互补基因对Avr4/Cf-4和Avr9/Cf-9的番茄(Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.)种子.常温下这些种子发芽后形成的苗产生HR坏死斑.(2)先将Avr/Cf苗置于33 ℃下培养,此时番茄苗生长正常,不形成HR坏死斑.然后将温度降至25 ℃,数小时内这些苗即形成HR坏死斑.不同方法研究结果均表明,随Avr/Cf苗中HR坏死斑的形成,Pti4、Pti5和Pti6均受显著诱导表达.但它们的表达水平和动态不同.这些结果表明,这些Pti在功能上互补,可能同时涉及Pto和Cf决定性抗性的调节作用.     

TLK1B promotes repair of UV-damaged DNA through chromatin remodeling by Asf1

Background  

The mammalian protein kinase TLK1 is a homologue of Tousled, a gene involved in flower development in Arabidopsis thaliana. The function of TLK1 is not well known, although knockout of the gene in Drosophila, or expression of a dominant negative mutant in mouse mammary cells causes loss of nuclear divisions and chromosome mis-segregation. TLK1B is a splice variant of TLK1 and it confers radioresistance in a normal mammary mouse cell line possibly due to increased chromatin remodeling capacity, but the mechanism of resistance remains to be fully elucidated.     

A nematode demographics assay in transgenic roots reveals no significant impacts of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Rhg1</Emphasis>locus LRR-Kinase on soybean cyst nematode resistance

Background  

Soybean cyst nematode (Heterodera glycines, SCN) is the most economically damaging pathogen of soybean (Glycine max) in the U.S. The Rhg1 locus is repeatedly observed as the quantitative trait locus with the greatest impact on SCN resistance. The Glyma18g02680.1 gene at the Rhg1 locus that encodes an apparent leucine-rich repeat transmembrane receptor-kinase (LRR-kinase) has been proposed to be the SCN resistance gene, but its function has not been confirmed. Generation of fertile transgenic soybean lines is difficult but methods have been published that test SCN resistance in transgenic roots generated with Agrobacterium rhizogenes.     

巴西橡胶Pto类抗病同源序列的克隆与系统发育重建

番茄Pto基因是一类可以编码丝氨酸/苏氨酸激酶(STK)序列的广谱抗性候选基因,其序列克隆与鉴定为深入了解番茄的抗病机制奠定了基础.在该研究中,一对依据Pto基因的保守序列设计的简并引物被用来扩增巴西橡胶中Pto基因抗病同源序列,扩增得到了一个约550 bp的基因片段,其随后被克隆并测序.序列分析发现,其中的7个抗病同源序列与Pto基因高度同源(BLASTX E value <3e-53),所以其被认为是Pto基因抗病同源序列(Pto-RGCs).通过巴西橡胶的Pto-RGCs多序列比对表明,这些序列包含了多个STKs保守的次级结构域.此外,系统发育分析也表明,巴西橡胶的Pto-RGCs属于Pto基因同源的R基因.该研究结果中Pto-RGCs可为巴西橡胶抗病的发展提供一个有效的基因资源.     

Pto mutants differentially activate Prf-dependent,avrPto-independent resistance and gene-for-gene resistance

Pto confers disease resistance to Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato carrying the cognate avrPto gene. Overexpression of Pto under the cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter activates spontaneous lesions and confers disease resistance in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) plants in the absence of avrPto. Here, we show that these AvrPto-independent defenses require a functional Prf gene. Several Pto-interacting (Pti) proteins are thought to play a role in Pto-mediated defense pathways. To test if interactions with Pti proteins are required for the AvrPto-independent defense responses by Pto overexpression, we isolated several Pto mutants that were unable to interact with one or more Pti proteins, but retained normal interaction with AvrPto. Overexpression of two mutants, Pto(G50S) and Pto(R150S), failed to activate AvrPto-independent defense responses or confer enhanced resistance to the virulent P. s. pv tomato. When introduced into plants carrying 35S::Pto, 35S::Pto(G50S) dominantly suppressed the AvrPto-independent resistance caused by former transgene. 35S::Pto(G50S) also blocked the induction of a number of defense genes by the wild-type 35S::Pto. However, 35S::Pto(G50S) and 35S::Pto(R150S) plants were completely resistant to P. s. pv tomato (avrPto), indicating a normal gene-for-gene resistance. Furthermore, 35S::Pto(G50S) plants exhibited normal induction of defense genes in recognition of avrPto. Thus, the AvrPto-independent defense activation and gene-for-gene resistance mediated by Pto are functionally separable.     

水稻蛋白激酶基因Pti1的克隆与分析

植物Pti1基因编码丝氨酸/苏氨酸蛋白激酶,是重要的抗病相关基因。在水稻抗褐飞虱基因Qbp1所在的染色体区段存在一个与番茄Pti1基因高度同源的序列片段。从抗虫水稻B5中分离了Pti1基因的全长cDNA克隆,测定了基因组序列。分析发现,水稻中Pti1基因长度有5644bp,含有7个内含子,编码368个氨基酸的激酶蛋白。其蛋白质的C末端在不同植物之间具有高度的保守性,而N末端的变异则相对较大。对不同水稻材料Pti1基因的序列进行了比较,发现药用野生稻与栽培稻之间存在较大的差异,而栽培稻各品种之间的差异较小。讨论了Pti1基因在抗虫防卫反应中可能的作用。     

The elicitation of a systemic resistance by Pseudomonas putida BTP1 in tomato involves the stimulation of two lipoxygenase isoforms

Background  

Some non-pathogenic rhizobacteria called Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) possess the capacity to induce in plant defense mechanisms effective against pathogens. Precedent studies showed the ability of Pseudomonas putida BTP1 to induce PGPR-mediated resistance, termed ISR (Induced Systemic Resistance), in different plant species. Despite extensive works, molecular defense mechanisms involved in ISR are less well understood that in the case of pathogen induced systemic acquired resistance.