Disease resistance and sexual reproductive development are generally considered as separate biological processes, regulated by different sets of genes. Here we show that xa13, a recessive allele conferring disease resistance against bacterial blight, one of the most devastating rice diseases worldwide, plays a key role in both disease resistance and pollen development. The dominant allele, Xa13, is required for both bacterial growth and pollen development. Promoter mutations in Xa13 cause downregulation of expression during host-pathogen interaction, resulting in the fully recessive xa13 that confers race-specific resistance. The recessive xa13 allele represents a new type of plant disease resistance.Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org.

In plant innate immunity, the surface-exposed leucine-rich repeat receptor kinases EFR and FLS2 mediate recognition of the bacterial pathogen-associated molecular patterns EF-Tu and flagellin, respectively. We identified the Arabidopsis stromal-derived factor-2 (SDF2) as being required for EFR function, and to a lesser extent FLS2 function. SDF2 resides in an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) protein complex with the Hsp40 ERdj3B and the Hsp70 BiP, which are components of the ER-quality control (ER-QC). Loss of SDF2 results in ER retention and degradation of EFR. The differential requirement for ER-QC components by EFR and FLS2 could be linked to N-glycosylation mediated by STT3a, a catalytic subunit of the oligosaccharyltransferase complex involved in co-translational N-glycosylation. Our results show that the plasma membrane EFR requires the ER complex SDF2-ERdj3B-BiP for its proper accumulation, and provide a demonstration of a physiological requirement for ER-QC in transmembrane receptor function in plants. They also provide an unexpected differential requirement for ER-QC and N-glycosylation components by two closely related receptors.

Plant innate immunity depends in part on recognition of pathogenassociated molecular patterns (PAMPs), such as bacterial flagellin, EF-Tu, and fungal chitin. Recognition is mediated by pattern-recogntition receptors (PRRs) and results in PAMP-triggered immunity. EF-Tu and flagellin, and the derived peptides elf18 and flg22, are recognized in Arabidopsis by the leucine-rich repeat receptor kinases (LRR-RK), EFR and FLS2, respectively. To gain insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying PTI, we investigated EFR-mediated PTI using genetics. A forward-genetic screen for Arabidopsis elf18-insensitive (elfin) mutants revealed multiple alleles of calreticulin3 (CRT3), UDPglucose glycoprotein glucosyl transferase (UGGT), and an HDEL receptor family member (ERD2b), potentially involved in endoplasmic reticulum quality control (ER-QC). Strikingly, FLS2-mediated responses were not impaired in crt3, uggt, and erd2b null mutants, revealing that the identified mutations are specific to EFR. A crt3 null mutant did not accumulate EFR protein, suggesting that EFR is a substrate for CRT3. Interestingly, Erd2b did not accumulate CRT3 protein, although they accumulate wild-type levels of other ER proteins. ERD2B seems therefore to be a specific HDEL receptor for CRT3 that allows its retro-translocation from the Golgi to the ER. These data reveal a previously unsuspected role of a specific subset of ER-QC machinery components for PRR accumulation in plant innate immunity.endoplasmic reticulum ͉ innate immunity ͉ receptor kinase P lant innate immunity involves three main processes: Recognition of conserved pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) leading to PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI), suppression of defense by pathogen effectors, and recognition of specific effectors by cytoplasmic host proteins resulting in effector-triggered immunity (ETI) (1-4). Three pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) that can initiate PTI are known in the plant model Arabidopsis thaliana. Bacterial flagellin, and its peptide surrogate flg22 are recognized by the leucine-rich repeat receptor kinase (LRR-RK) FLS2 (5), bacterial elongation factor (EF)-Tu, and its surrogate peptide elf18 are recognized by the related LRR-RK EFR (6), while recognition of fungal chitin and unknown bacterial PAMP(s) depend on CERK1, a LysM domain RK (7-9).EFR and FLS2 are glycosylated transmembrane proteins (6, 10) and therefore need to enter the secretory pathway to mature and to reach their final plasma membrane destination. The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is the first organelle of the secretory pathway and is responsible for the proper folding and assembly of polypeptides that are then directed to the Golgi. After translocation in the ER, newly synthesized polypeptides interact with different chaperones that will assist them to fold properly and to avoid aggregation in a process called ER quality control (ER-QC) (11). Misfolded proteins are directed to ER-associated degradation, leading to their clearance by the ubiquitin-proteasome in the cytosol (12). Most of our k...

Pathogen effectors are virulence factors causing plant diseases. How the host targets of these effectors facilitate pathogen infection is largely unknown. An effector of Xanthomonas oryzae pv oryzae (Xoo) transcriptionally activates rice (Oryza sativa) susceptibility gene Xa13 to cause bacterial blight disease. Xa13 encodes an indispensable plasma membrane protein of the MtN3/saliva family, which is prevalent in eukaryotes with unknown biochemical function. We show that the XA13 protein cooperates with two other proteins, COPT1 and COPT5, to promote removal of copper from xylem vessels, where Xoo multiplies and spreads to cause disease. Copper, an essential micronutrient of plants and an important element for a number of pesticides in agriculture, suppresses Xoo growth. Xoo strain PXO99 is more sensitive to copper than other strains; its infection of rice is associated with activation of XA13, COPT1, and COPT5, which modulate copper redistribution in rice. The involvement of XA13 in copper redistribution has led us to propose a mechanism of bacterial virulence.

The creation of a tissue engineering scaffold via electrospinning that has minimal toxicity and uses a solvent system composed of solvents with low toxicity and different cross-linking agents was investigated. First, a solvent system of acetic acid/ethyl acetate/water (50:30:20) with gelatin as a solute was evaluated. The optimum system for electrospinning a scaffold with the desired properties resulted from a gelatin concentration of 10 wt %. Several different methods were used to cross-link the electrospun gelatin fibers, including vapor-phase glutaraldehyde, aqueous phase genipin, and glyceraldehyde, as well as reactive oxygen species from a plasma cleaner. Because glutaraldehyde at high concentrations has been shown to be toxic, we explored other cross-linking methods. Using reactive oxygen species from a plasma cleaner is an easy alternative; however, the degradation reaction dominated the cross-linking reaction and the scaffolds degraded after only a few hours in aqueous medium at 37 °C. Glyceraldehyde and genipin were established as good options for cross-linking agents because of the low toxicity of these cross-linkers and the resistance to dissolution of the cross-linked fibers in cell culture medium at 37 °C. MG63 osteoblastic cells were grown on each of the cross-linked scaffolds. A proliferation assay showed that the cells proliferated as well or better on the cross-linked scaffolds than on traditional two-dimensional polystyrene culture plates.

The current investigation aimed to develop a biomimetic, three-dimensional (3D) culture system for poorly adherent bone metastatic prostate cancer cells (C4-2B) for use as an in vitro platform for anti-cancer drug screening. To this end, hyaluronic acid (HA) derivatives carrying complementary aldehyde (HAALD) and hydrazide (HAADH) groups were synthesized and characterized. In situ encapsulation of C4-2B cells was achieved by simple mixing of HAALD and HAADH in the presence of the cells. Unlike two-dimensional (2D) monolayer culture in which cells adopt an atypical spread morphology, cells residing in the HA matrix formed distinct clustered structures which grew and merged, reminiscent of real tumors. Anti-cancer drugs added to the media surrounding the cell/gel construct diffused into the gel and killed the embedded cells. The HA hydrogel system was used successfully to test the efficacy of anti-cancer drugs including camptothecin, docetaxel, and rapamycin, alone and in combination, including specificity, dose and time responses. Responses of cells to anti-neoplastics differed between the 3D HA hydrogel and 2D monolayer systems. We suggest that the data obtained from 3D HA systems is superior to that from conventional 2D monolayers as the 3D system better reflects the bone metastatic microenvironment of the cancer cells.

Understanding the interaction between surfaces and their surroundings is crucial in many materials-science fields, such as catalysis, corrosion, and thin-film electronics, but existing characterization methods have not been capable of fully determining the structure of surfaces during dynamic processes, such as catalytic reactions, in a reasonable time frame. We demonstrate an x-ray-diffraction-based characterization method that uses high-energy photons (85 kiloelectron volts) to provide unexpected gains in data acquisition speed by several orders of magnitude and enables structural determinations of surfaces on time scales suitable for in situ studies. We illustrate the potential of high-energy surface x-ray diffraction by determining the structure of a palladium surface in situ during catalytic carbon monoxide oxidation and follow dynamic restructuring of the surface with subsecond time resolution.

MXenes, a newly intriguing family of 2D materials, have recently attracted considerable attention owing to their excellent properties such as high electrical conductivity and mobility, tunable structure, and termination groups. Here, the Ti3C2Tx MXene is incorporated into the perovskite absorber layer for the first time, which aims for efficiency enhancement. Results show that the termination groups of Ti3C2Tx can retard the crystallization rate, thereby increasing the crystal size of CH3NH3PbI3. It is found that the high electrical conductivity and mobility of MXene can accelerate the charge transfer. After optimizing the key parameters, 12% enhancement in device performance is achieved by 0.03 wt% amount of MXene additive. This work unlocks opportunities for the use of MXene as potential materials in perovskite solar cell applications.