Nuclear Activity of MLA Immune Receptors Links Isolate-Specific and Basal Disease-Resistance Responses

Abstract

Plant immune responses are triggered by pattern recognition receptors that detect conserved pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) or by resistance (R) proteins recognizing isolate-specific pathogen effectors. We show that in barley, intracellular mildew A (MLA) R proteins function in the nucleus to confer resistance against the powdery mildew fungus. Recognition of the fungal avirulence A10 effector by MLA10 induces nuclear associations between receptor and WRKY transcription factors. The identified WRKY proteins act as repressors of PAMP-triggered basal defense. MLA appears to interfere with the WRKY repressor function, thereby de-repressing PAMP-triggered basal defense. Our findings reveal a mechanism by which these polymorphic immune receptors integrate distinct pathogen signals.

The phenotypic expression of QTLs for partial resistance to barley leaf rust during plant development

“…Moreover, multiple disease evaluations can be conducted for Rphq4 in individual plants by inoculation of the fourth leaf to the Xag leaf, respectively, enabling a more reliable evaluation of Rphq4 in a single plant. Barley stripe mosaic virus-induced gene silencing (BSMV-VIGS) is an important tool for the analysis of gene function in barley (Holzberg et al 2002;Lacomme et al 2003) and has been successfully used to deWne the function of important genes (Hein et al 2005;Shen et al 2007). In BSMV-VIGS system, photobleaching symptoms were usually observed approximately 3 weeks after the viral inoculation.…”

A systems biology perspective on the role of WRKY transcription factors in drought responses in plants

“…There are many other examples of wRKY-MAP kinase interactions (Chi et al 2013). Other interacting partners of wRKY proteins include 14-3-3 proteins (Chang et al 2009), chromatin remodeling proteins such as Arabidopsis histone deacetylase 19 (Kim et al 2010), vQ proteins ), CC-NBR-LRR-type R proteins (Shen et al 2007), e3 ubiquitin ligases (Miao and Zentgraf 2010) and the chloroplast ⁄ plastid-localized ABA receptor, ABAR (Shang et al 2010). These interacting partners of wRKY TFs are providing increasing information as to the roles and mechanisms involved in wRKY TF action at the systems level.…”

Characterization of an Elicitor-Induced Rice WRKY Gene,OsWRKY71

“…24) To clarify further the roles of OsWRKY71 in defense responses to pathogen infection in rice, the identification of downstream target genes of OsWRKY71 is required.…”