Plants are commonly attacked by multiple herbivorous species. Yet, little is known about transcriptional patterns underlying plant responses to multiple insect attackers feeding simultaneously. Here, we assessed transcriptomic responses of Arabidopsis thaliana plants to simultaneous feeding by Plutella xylostella caterpillars and Brevicoryne brassicae aphids in comparison to plants infested by P. xylostella caterpillars alone, using microarray analysis. We particularly investigated how aphid feeding interferes with the transcriptomic response to P. xylostella caterpillars and whether this interference is dependent on aphid density and time since aphid attack. Various JA-responsive genes were up-regulated in response to feeding by P. xylostella caterpillars. The additional presence of aphids, both at low and high densities, clearly affected the transcriptional plant response to caterpillars. Interestingly, some important modulators of plant defense signalling, including WRKY transcription factor genes and ABA-dependent genes, were differentially induced in response to simultaneous aphid feeding at low or high density compared with responses to P. xylostella caterpillars feeding alone. Furthermore, aphids affected the P. xylostella-induced transcriptomic response in a density-dependent manner, which caused an acceleration in plant response against dual insect attack at high aphid density compared to dual insect attack at low aphid density. In conclusion, our study provides evidence that aphids influence the caterpillar-induced transcriptional response of A. thaliana in a density-dependent manner. It highlights the importance of addressing insect density to understand how plant responses to single attackers interfere with responses to other attackers and thus underlines the importance of the dynamics of transcriptional plant responses to multiple herbivory.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00442-016-3758-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

BackgroundPlant cell walls are dynamic structures involved in all aspects of plant growth, environmental interactions and defense responses, and are the most abundant renewable source of carbon-containing polymers on the planet. To balance rigidity and extensibility, the composition and integrity of cell wall components need to be tightly regulated, for example during cell elongation.ResultsWe show that mutations in the MED25/PFT1 and MED8 subunits of the Mediator transcription complex suppressed the sugar-hypersensitive hypocotyl elongation phenotype of the hsr8-1 mutant, which has cell wall defects due to arabinose deficiency that do not permit normal cell elongation. This suppression occurred independently of light and jasmonic acid (JA) signaling. Gene expression analyses revealed that the expression of genes induced in hsr8-1 that encode enzymes and proteins that are involved in cell expansion and cell wall strengthening is reduced in the pft1-2 mutant line, and the expression of genes encoding transcription factors involved in reducing hypocotyl cell elongation, genes encoding cell wall associated enzymes and proteins is up-regulated in pft1-2. PFT1 was also required for the expression of several glucose-induced genes, including those encoding cell wall components and enzymes, regulatory and enzymatic components of anthocyanin biosynthesis, and flavonoid and glucosinolate biosynthetic pathways.ConclusionsThese results establish that MED25 and MED8 subunits of the Mediator transcriptional complex are required for the transcriptional regulation of genes involved in cell elongation and cell wall composition in response to defective cell walls and in sugar- responsive gene expression.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12870-015-0592-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Author contributions: RB-J, AD, SM, ASN, ZMT, PB and DC performed the experimental work.AD, MCU, DC and STM performed the Affymetrix analysis. IDS performed statistical analysis, SRJ conceived the study, obtained the funding, saw the patients and is guarantor for the study.

Screen identifies genes that affect tumor behavior in a wide variety of ways A functionally validated network of invasionsuppressor genes was generated Loss of cohesin complex function can promote individual or collective cell invasionThe fly pupal notum is an excellent in vivo system to study tumor progression

Chondrogenic progenitor cells (CPCs) may be used as an alternative source of cells with potentially superior chondrogenic potential compared to mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), and could be exploited for future regenerative therapies targeting articular cartilage in degenerative diseases such as osteoarthritis (OA). In this study,This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.