Diversity of plant defense elicitor peptides within the Rosaceae

Chen

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

Plant mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) are a valuable source of genetic information for a better understanding of phylogenetic relationships. However, no mitogenome of any species in the genus of Photinia has been reported. In this study, using NGS sequencing, we reported the mitogenome assembly and annotation of Photinia serratifolia, which is 473,579 bp in length, contains 38 protein-coding genes, 23 tRNAs, and 6 rRNAs, with 61 genes have no introns. The rps2 and rps11 genes are missing in the P. serratifolia mitogenome. Although there are more editing sites (488) in the P. serratifolia mitogenome than in most angiosperms, fewer editing types were found in the P. serratifolia mitogenome, showing a clear bias in RNA-editing. Phylogenetic analysis based on the mitogenomes of P. serratifolia and 8 other taxa of the Rosaceae family reflected the exact evolutionary and taxonomic status of P. serratifolia. However, Ka/Ks analysis revealed that 72.69% of the protein-coding genes in the P. serratifolia mitogenome had undergone negative selections, reflecting the importance of those genes in the P. serratifolia mitogenome. Collectively, these results will provide valuable information for the evolution of P. serratifolia and provide insight into the evolutionary relationships within Photinia and the Rosaceae family.

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

Characterization and phylogenetic analysis of the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of Photinia serratifolia

Chen

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

“…Peps are cleaved and released from larger precursor proteins called PROPEPs. A comprehensive search for PROPEPs throughout dicotyledonous plants in Brassicaceae, Solanaceae and Rosaceae, as well as monocotyledon crops in Poaceae revealed extensive differences in their amino acid sequences [ 17 , 24 ]. In this study, nine BoPROPEPs were identified in the broccoli genome, and the amino acid-based homology was very low ( Figure 1 A).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A recent study demonstrated that OsPep3 conferred rice resistance to brown planthopper by regulating jasmonic acid biosynthesis, as well as lipid and phenylpropanoid metabolism through transcriptomics and metabolomics profiling [ 16 ]. Moreover, the presence and pathogen defense activity of Peps within Rosaceae was characterized in [ 17 ]. Prunus persica peptides PpPep1 and PpPep2 were proved to cause PTI-like transcriptome reprogramming at nanomolar doses in vivo [ 18 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

BoPEP4, a C-Terminally Encoded Plant Elicitor Peptide from Broccoli, Plays a Role in Salinity Stress Tolerance

Guo

et al. 2022

IJMS

Plant peptide hormones play various roles in plant development, pathogen defense and abiotic stress tolerance. Plant elicitor peptides (Peps) are a type of damage-associated molecular pattern (DAMP) derived from precursor protein PROPEPs. In this study, we identified nine PROPEP genes in the broccoli genome. qRT-PCR analysis indicated that the expression levels of BoPROPEPs were induced by NaCl, ABA, heat, SA and P. syringae DC3000 treatments. In order to study the functions of Peps in salinity stress response, we synthesized BoPep4 peptide, the precursor gene of which, BoPROPEP4, was significantly responsive to NaCl treatment, and carried out a salinity stress assay by exogenous application of BoPep4 in broccoli sprouts. The results showed that the application of 100 nM BoPep4 enhanced tolerance to 200 mM NaCl in broccoli by reducing the Na+/K+ ratio and promoting accumulation of wax and cutin in leaves. Further RNA-seq analysis identified 663 differentially expressed genes (DGEs) under combined treatment with BoPep4 and NaCl compared with NaCl treatment, as well as 1776 genes differentially expressed specifically upon BoPep4 and NaCl treatment. GO and KEGG analyses of these DEGs indicated that most genes were enriched in auxin and ABA signal transduction, as well as wax and cutin biosynthesis. Collectively, this study shows that there was crosstalk between peptide hormone BoPep4 signaling and some well-established signaling pathways under salinity stress in broccoli sprouts, which implies an essential function of BoPep4 in salinity stress defense.

“…Although homology searches predicted PROPEP precursors, the putative active Pep sequences are widely variable, with only Gly17 being perfectly conserved, along with a His or Asn residue at the carboxyl terminus and an enrichment of Ser and Gly residues in the carboxyl half of the peptide (Huffaker et al, 2006(Huffaker et al, , 2013Lori et al, 2015). Despite this sequence variability, predicted PROPEPs/Peps have been demonstrated as functionally orthologous to Arabidopsis, regulating defense responses in fabaceous, rosaceous, solanaceous and poaceous plants (Huffaker et al, 2011a(Huffaker et al, , 2013Trivilin et al, 2014;Lee et al, 2018;Ruiz et al, 2018a;Shinya et al, 2018;Zhang and Gleason, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential activities of maize plant elicitor peptides as mediators of immune signaling and herbivore resistance

et al. 2020

Plant elicitor peptides (Peps) are conserved regulators of defense responses and models for the study of damage-associated molecular pattern-induced immunity. Although present as multigene families in most species, the functional relevance of these multigene families remains largely undefined. While Arabidopsis Peps appear largely redundant in function, previous work examining Pep-induced responses in maize (Zm) implied specificity of function. To better define the function of individual ZmPeps and their cognate receptors (ZmPEPRs), activities were examined by assessing changes in defense-associated phytohormones, specialized metabolites and global gene expression patterns, in combination with heterologous expression assays and analyses of CRISPR/Cas9-generated knockout plants. Beyond simply delineating individual ZmPep and ZmPEPR activities, these experiments led to a number of new insights into Pep signaling mechanisms. ZmPROPEP and other poaceous precursors were found to contain multiple active Peps, a phenomenon not previously observed for this family. In all, seven new ZmPeps were identified and the peptides were found to have specific activities defined by the relative magnitude of their response output rather than by uniqueness. A striking correlation was observed between individual ZmPep-elicited changes in levels of jasmonic acid and ethylene and the magnitude of induced defense responses, indicating that ZmPeps may collectively regulate immune output through rheostat-like tuning of phytohormone levels. Peptide structure-function studies and ligand-receptor modeling revealed structural features critical to the function of ZmPeps and led to the identification of ZmPep5a as a potential antagonist peptide able to competitively inhibit the activity of other ZmPeps, a regulatory mechanism not previously observed for this family.