The cuticle of land plants is the first physical barrier to protect their aerial parts from biotic and abiotic stresses. DEWAX, an AP2/ERF-type transcription factor, negatively regulates cuticular wax biosynthesis. In this study, we investigated the resistance to Botrytis cinerea in Arabidopsis thaliana and Camelina sativa overexpressing DEWAX and in Arabidopsis dewax mutant. Compared to wild type (WT) leaves, Arabidopsis DEWAX OX and dewax leaves were more and less permeable to toluidine blue dye, respectively. The ROS levels increased in DEWAX OX leaves, but decreased in dewax relative to WT leaves. Compared to WT, DEWAX OX was more resistant, while dewax was more sensitive to B. cinerea; however, defense responses to Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000:GFP were inversely modulated. Microarray and RT-PCR analyses indicated that the expression of defense-related genes was upregulated in DEWAX OX, but downregulated in dewax relative to WT. Transactivation assay showed that DEWAX upregulated the expression of PDF1.2a, IGMT1, and PRX37. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assay revealed that DEWAX directly interacts with the GCC-box motifs of PDF1.2a promoter. In addition, ectopic expression of DEWAX increased the tolerance to B. cinerea in C. sativa. Taken together, we suggest that increased ROS accumulation and DEWAX-mediated upregulation of defense-related genes are closely associated with enhanced resistance to B. cinerea in Arabidopsis and C. sativa.

ALD1 (ABERRANT GROWTH AND DEATH2 [AGD2]-LIKE DEFENSE1) is one of the key defense regulators in Arabidopsis thaliana and Nicotiana benthamiana. In these model plants, ALD1 is responsible for triggering basal defense response and systemic resistance against bacterial infection. As well ALD1 is involved in the production of pipecolic acid and an unidentified compound(s) for systemic resistance and priming syndrome, respectively. These previous studies proposed that ALD1 is a potential candidate for developing genetically modified (GM) plants that may be resistant to pathogen infection. Here we introduce a role of ALD1-LIKE gene of Oryza sativa, named as OsALD1, during plant immunity. OsALD1 mRNA was strongly transcribed in the infected leaves of rice plants by Magnaporthe oryzae, the rice blast fungus. OsALD1 proteins predominantly localized at the chloroplast in the plant cells. GM rice plants over-expressing OsALD1 were resistant to the fungal infection. The stable expression of OsALD1 also triggered strong mRNA expression of PATHOGENESIS-RELATED PROTEIN1 genes in the leaves of rice plants during infection. Taken together, we conclude that OsALD1 plays a role in disease resistance response of rice against the infection with rice blast fungus.

The diverse microbial communities in kimchi are dependent on fermentation period and temperature. Here, we investigated the effect of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) during the fermentation of kimchi at two temperatures using high-throughput sequencing. There were no differences in pH between the control group, samples not inoculated with ETEC, and the ETEC group, samples inoculated with ETEC MFDS 1009477. The pH of the two groups, which were fermented at 10 and 25 o C, decreased rapidly at the beginning of fermentation and then reached pH 3.96 and pH 3.62. In both groups, the genera Lactobacillus, Leuconostoc, and Weissella were predominant. Our result suggests that microbial communities during kimchi fermentation may be affected by the fermentation parameters, such as temperature and period, and not enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC).