Project description:The selective impact of pathogen epidemics on host defenses can be strong but remains transient. By contrast, life-history shifts can durably and continuously modify the balance between costs and benefits, which arbitrates the evolution of host defenses. Their impact, however, has seldom been documented. Here, we show with a simple mathematical model that the selective advantage of the defense system is expected to decrease with decreasing life span. We further document that, in natural populations of the model plant system Arabidopsis thaliana, the expression level of defense genes correlate positively with flowering time, a proxy for the length of vegetative life span. Using a genetic strategy to partition life span-dependent and –independent defense genes, we demonstrate that this positive co-variation is not explained by the pleiotropic action of major regulatory genes controlling both defense and life span. In agreement with our model, this study reveals that natural selection has likely assembled alleles promoting lower expression of defense genes with alleles decreasing the duration of vegetative life span in natural populations of A. thaliana. This is the first study demonstrating that life history evolution has a pervasive impact on the evolution of host immunity.
Project description:Next generation sequencing was performed to identify genes changed in Arabidopsis thaliana upon Botrytis cinerea infection. The goal of the work is to find interesting genes involved in plant defense. The object is to reveal the molecular mechanism of plant defense.
Project description:Plants have developed a complicated resistance system, and they exhibit various defense patterns in response to different attackers. However, the determine factors of plant defense patterns are still not clear. Here, we hypothesized that damage patterns of plant attackers play an important role in determining the plant defense patterns. To test this hypothesis, we selected leafminer, which has a special feeding pattern more similar to pathogen damage than chewing insects, as our model insect, and Arabidopsis thaliana as the response plants. The local and systemic responses of Arabidopsis thaliana to leafminer feeding were investigated using the Affymetrix ATH1 genome array.
Project description:Plant volatiles can mediate plant-plant communication in the sense that plants attacked by herbivores can signal their unattacked neighbors of danger by emitting HIPVs. We call this the priming effect. Since the plant defense response is a systematic process involving numerous pathways and genes,to characterize the priming process, a time course study using a genome-wide microarray may provide more accurate information about the priming process. Furthermore, to what extent do the priming process and direct defense share similar gene expression profiles or pathways are also not clear. We used microarray to detect the priming effect of plant volatiles to healthy Arabidopsis thaliana, and the effect of direct leafminer feeding to Arabidopsis thalianas.
Project description:Plant microRNAs (miRNAs) have been implicated in plant immunity. These mainly focusing Arabidopsis thaliana threatened by (hemi-)biotrophic pathogens such as the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae. Here, we show that the Arabidopsis miRNA pathway is important for defense responses against the necrotrophic fungus Alternaria brassicicola. The miRNA pathway mutant ago1 exhibits an exaggerated response when treated with A. brassicicola, proposing that AGO1 is positive regulator. We found a subset of Arabidopsis miRNAs that quickly change their expression and their abundance in AGO1 complexes in plants exposed to A. brassicicola. The miRNAs responding to pathogen treatment are mainly targeting genes encoding metabolic enzymes, proteins involved protein degradation or transposons. In case of miR163, A. brassicicola infection results in increased levels of miRNA precursors and preferential accumulation of an unspliced form of pri-miR163, suggesting that A. brassicicola infection changes the transcriptional and post-regulation of pri-miRNAs. miR163 acts as a negative regulator of plant defense because mir163 mutants are more resistant when treated with A. brassicicola. Taken together, our results reveal the existence of positively and negatively acting Arabidopsis miRNA modulating the defense responses against A. brassicicola and highlight the importance of host miRNAs in the interaction between plants and necrotrophic pathogens.
Project description:In order to protect themselves from pathogens, plants activate a battery of defense pathways, many of which involve changes in gene expression. We are interested in identifying plant genes that are differentially expressed in response to pathogen exposure, with the ultimate goal of studying the roles of these genes in plant defense. Keywords: disease response
Project description:Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) target a variety of protein substrates to regulate cellular signaling processes in eukaryotes. In plants, the number of identified MAPK substrates that control plant defense responses is still limited. Here, we generated transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants with an inducible system to simulate in vivo activation of two stress-activated MAPKs, MPK3 and MPK6. Metabolome analysis revealed that this artificial MPK3/6 activation (without any exposure to pathogens or other stresses) is sufficient to drive the production of major defense-related metabolites, including various camalexin, indole glucosinolate and agmatine derivatives. An accompanying (phospho)proteome analysis led to detection of hundreds of potential phosphoproteins downstream of MPK3/6 activation. Besides known MAPK substrates, many candidates on this list possess typical MAPK-targeted phosphosites and in many cases, the corresponding phosphopeptides were detected by mass spectrometry. Notably, several of these putative phosphoproteins have been reported to be associated with the biosynthesis of antimicrobial defense substances (e.g. WRKY transcription factors and proteins encoded by the genes from the “PEN” pathway required for penetration resistance to filamentous pathogens). Thus, this work provides an inventory of candidate phosphoproteins, including putative direct MAPK substrates, for future analysis of MAPK-mediated defense control.