SUMMARY
The Arabidopsis MEKK1‐MKK1/MKK2‐MPK4 kinase cascade is monitored by the nucleotide‐binding leucine‐rich‐repeat immune receptor SUMM2. Disruption of this kinase cascade leads to activation of SUMM2‐mediated immune responses. MEKK2, a close paralog of MEKK1, is required for defense responses mediated by SUMM2, the molecular mechanism of which is unclear. In this study, we showed that MEKK2 serves as a negative regulator of MPK4. It binds to MPK4 to directly inhibit its phosphorylation by upstream MKKs. Activation of SUMM2‐mediated defense responses induces the expression of MEKK2, which in turn blocks MPK4 phosphorylation to further amplify immune responses mediated by SUMM2. Intriguingly, MEKK2 locates in a tandem repeat consisting of MEKK1, MEKK2 and MEKK3, which was generated from a recent gene duplication event, suggesting that MEKK2 evolved from a MAPKKK to become a negative regulator of MAP kinases.
Plant immune responses are mainly activated by two types of receptors. Plasma membrane-localized pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) recognize conserved features of microbes, and intracellular nucleotide-binding leucine rich repeat receptors (NLRs) recognize effector proteins from pathogens. NLRs possessing N-terminal Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) domains (TNLs) activate two parallel signaling pathways via the EDS1/PAD4/ADR1s and the EDS1/SAG101/NRG1s modules. The relationship between PRR-mediated pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) and TIR signaling is unclear. Here we report that activation of TIR signaling plays a key role in PTI. Blocking TIR signaling by knocking out components of the EDS1/PAD4/ADR1s and EDS1/SAG101/NRG1s modules results in attenuated PTI responses such as reduced salicylic acid (SA) levels and expression of defense genes, and compromised resistance against pathogens. Consistently, PTI is attenuated in transgenic plants that have reduced accumulation of NLRs. Upon treatment with PTI elicitors such as flg22 and nlp20, a large number of genes encoding TNLs or TIR domain-containing proteins are rapidly induced, likely responsible for activating TIR signaling during PTI. In support, overexpression of some of these genes results in activation of defense responses. Overall, our study reveals that TIR signaling activation is an important mechanism for boosting plant defense during PTI.
Agrobacterium-mediated transformation methods have allowed the stable introduction of target genes into the nuclear genomes of recipient plants. Among them, the floral dip approach represents the simplest due to its straightforwardness and high transformation efficiency. In a standard floral dip protocol that most researchers follow, Agrobacterium cells are grown to stationary phase (OD600≈2.0) in large cultures and resuspended in inoculation medium to OD600≥0.8. Here, we tested the effects of low Agrobacterium inoculum on transformation rate. Our data revealed that the floral dip method still guarantees relatively high transformation rate in Arabidopsis thaliana Col-0 ecotype even with very low Agrobacterium inoculum (OD600=0.002). Our finding thus simplifies the floral dipping protocol further, which allows transformation with small bacterial culture and enables high-throughput transformation of large numbers of constructs in parallel.
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