Ethylene Response Factor 1 Mediates Arabidopsis Resistance to the Soilborne Fungus Fusarium oxysporum

Abstract

Ethylene response factor 1 (ERF1) is a transcriptional factor from Arabidopsis thaliana that regulates plant resistance to the necrotrophic fungi Botrytis cinerea and Plectosphaerella cucumerina and whose overexpression enhances resistance to these fungi. Here, we show that ERF1 also mediates Arabidopsis resistance to the soilborne fungi Fusarium oxysporum sp. conglutinans and F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici, because its constitutive expression in Arabidopsis confers enhanced resistance to these pathogens. Expression of ERF1 was upregulated after inoculation with F. oxysporum f. sp. conglutinans, and this response was blocked in ein2-5 and coi1-1 mutants, impaired in the ethylene (ET) and jasmonic acid (JA) signal pathways, respectively, which further indicates that ERF1 is a downstream component of ET and JA defense responses. The signal transduction network controlling resistance to F. oxysporum fungi was explored using signaling-defective mutants in ET (ein2-5), JA (jar1-1), and salicylic acid (SA) (NahG, sid2-1, eds5-1, npr1-1, pad4-1, eds1-1, and pad2-1) transduction pathways. This analysis revealed that Arabidopsis resistance to F. oxysporum requires the ET, JA, and SA signaling pathways and the NPR1 gene, although it is independent of the PAD4 and EDS1 functions.

Fusarium oxysporum hijacks COI1‐mediated jasmonate signaling to promote disease development in Arabidopsis

“…As in most other plant species, resistance to F. oxysporum behaves as a quantitative trait in Arabidopsis (Diener and Ausubel, 2005), but no immunity has been observed in the Arabidopsis gene pool surveyed so far (Berrocal-Lobo and Molina, 2004;Diener and Ausubel, 2005;Edgar et al, 2006). An increased resistance to F. oxysporum in transgenic plants has been associated with increased JA-responsive gene expression, such as the overexpression of defense genes (e.g.…”

ArabidopsisPEN3/PDR8, an ATP Binding Cassette Transporter, Contributes to Nonhost Resistance to Inappropriate Pathogens That Enter by Direct Penetration

“…Three-week-old plants were inoculated with E. pisi (Birmingham Isolate) using a settling tower (Lipka et al, 2005). For the growth of Plectosphaerella cucumerina and Botrytis cinerea, seeds were surface-sterilized, sown on square, 12.5 3 12.5-cm Petri dishes containing Murashige and Skoog basal salt mixture medium with 0.8% phytagel (Sigma-Aldrich), transferred to a phytochamber, and grown as described previously (Berrocal-Lobo et al, 2002;Berrocal-Lobo and Molina, 2004;Llorente et al, 2005). For high-light treatments, plants were germinated and grown at 228C under a continuous light regime of ;900 mEÁm ÿ2 Ás ÿ1 in the 400-to 700-nm range.…”

“…Mock inoculations were done by spraying the plants with sterile water. After inoculation, plants were kept under the growth conditions described above; 10 d later, the percentage reduction of plant fresh weight caused by the fungal infection was calculated as described (Berrocal-Lobo and Molina, 2004). Inoculations of wild-type plants and pen3-1 mutants with B. cinerea were performed as described previously (Llorente et al, 2005), and the percentage of decayed plants was determined at different days after inoculation.…”

Plant defense response against Fusarium oxysporum and strategies to develop tolerant genotypes in banana

“…conglutinans and F. oxysporum f.sp. lycopersici was studied at different stages of signaling using mutants defective in the eT (ein2-5), JA (co1-1 and jar1-1) and SA (NahG, (Berrocal-Lobo and Molina 2004) pathways, revealing the influence of these pathways against Fox. Thatcher et al (2009), have demonstrated JA perception mutant coronatine insensitive 1 (coi1), but not JA biosynthesis mutants, which exhibited a high level of resistance to wilt disease caused by F. oxysporum in Arabidopsis Kidd et al (2011) thaliana.…”