Gene silencing to investigate the roles of receptor-like proteins in Arabidopsis

Abstract

Receptor-like proteins (RLPs) are cell surface receptors that play important roles in various processes. In several plant species RLPs have been found to play a role in disease resistance, including the tomato Cf and Ve proteins and the apple HcrVf proteins that mediate resistance against the fungal pathogens Cladosporium fulvum, Verticillium spp., and Venturia inaequalis, respectively. The Arabidopsis genome contains 57 AtRLP genes. Two of these, CLV2 (AtRLP10) and TMM (AtRLP17), have well-characterized functions in meristem and stomatal development, respectively, while AtRLP52 is required for defense against powdery mildew. We recently reported the assembly of a genome-wide collection of T-DNA insertion lines for the Arabidopsis AtRLP genes. This collection was functionally analyzed with respect to plant growth, development and sensitivity to various stress responses including pathogen susceptibility. Only few new phenotypes were discovered; while AtRLP41 was found to mediate abscisic acid sensitivity, AtRLP30 (and possibly AtRLP18) was found to be required for full non-host resistance to a bacterial pathogen. Possibly, identification of novel phenotypes is obscured by functional redundancy. Therefore, RNA interference (RNAi) to target the expression of multiple AtRLP genes simultaneously was employed followed by functional analysis of the RNAi lines.Receptor-like proteins (RLPs) are cell surface receptors that typically consist of an extracellular leucine-rich repeat (eLRR) domain, a single-pass transmembrane domain and a short cytoplasmatic tail that lacks obvious motifs for intracellular signaling except for the putative endocytosis motif found in some members. [1][2][3] In several plant species RLPs play important roles in development and pathogen defense. Arabidopsis CLAVATA2 (CLV2; AtRLP10) and its maize ortholog

Subtilase activity in the intrusive cells mediates haustorium maturation in parasitic plants

“…ICSL1 is homologous to the Arabidopsis HSL1 receptor, which localizes to the plasma membrane and recognizes peptide hormones (Torii, 2004; Macho and Zipfel, 2014; Shinohara et al ., 2016). The phylogenetically closest Arabidopsis ICSL1 homolog, however, is AtRLP52, a receptor-like kinase associated with disease resistance and an unknown ligand (Ramonell et al ., 2005; Ellendorff et al ., 2008) (Supplemental Fig. S5).…”

Transcriptional regulation of receptor-like protein genes by environmental stresses and hormones and their overexpression activities inArabidopsis thaliana

“…1 ), making it impossible to generate high-order mutant combinations. RNA interference studies that silence multiple AtRLP genes simultaneously also failed to uncover new biological functions for several sets of closely related AtRLP genes ( Ellendorff et al , 2008 ). As an alternative approach, analysis of the gain-of-function phenotypes has yielded valuable information on the function of AtRLP genes, including TMM , Ve1 and AtRLP23 ( Fradin et al , 2009 ; Fradin et al , 2011 ; Yan et al , 2014 ; Albert et al , 2015 ).…”