Reciprocal Responses in the Interaction between Arabidopsis and the Cell-Content-Feeding Chelicerate Herbivore Spider Mite    

Abstract

Most molecular-genetic studies of plant defense responses to arthropod herbivores have focused on insects. However, plantfeeding mites are also pests of diverse plants, and mites induce different patterns of damage to plant tissues than do well-studied insects (e.g. lepidopteran larvae or aphids). The two-spotted spider mite (Tetranychus urticae) is among the most significant mite pests in agriculture, feeding on a staggering number of plant hosts. To understand the interactions between spider mite and a plant at the molecular level, we examined reciprocal genome-wide responses of mites and its host Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Despite differences in feeding guilds, we found that transcriptional responses of Arabidopsis to mite herbivory resembled those observed for lepidopteran herbivores. Mutant analysis of induced plant defense pathways showed functionally that only a subset of induced programs, including jasmonic acid signaling and biosynthesis of indole glucosinolates, are central to Arabidopsis's defense to mite herbivory. On the herbivore side, indole glucosinolates dramatically increased mite mortality and development times. We identified an indole glucosinolate dose-dependent increase in the number of differentially expressed mite genes belonging to pathways associated with detoxification of xenobiotics. This demonstrates that spider mite is sensitive to Arabidopsis defenses that have also been associated with the deterrence of insect herbivores that are very distantly related to chelicerates. Our findings provide molecular insights into the nature of, and response to, herbivory for a representative of a major class of arthropod herbivores.Plants have evolved complex systems of defense to deter and/or prevent feeding by two different groups of organisms: pathogens such as bacteria and fungi, and herbivores such as plant-feeding arthropods. These defense mechanisms include preexisting structural barriers and deterrents as well as induced immune defenses that further protect the plant from biotic stressors. Our understanding of plant defenses derives largely from studies of plant-pathogen interactions, where the availability of genetically tractable interacting organisms has been critical in identifying key elements required for immune responses. The induced defense response to pathogens is a multilayered process that is initiated by the recognition of conserved pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) by the pattern recognition receptors. Upon recognition of extracellular PAMPs, pattern recognition receptors induce PAMP-triggered plant immunity that restricts the propagation of pathogens.

Metabolomics of Disease Resistance in Crops

“…Particularly, ITCs derived from aliphatic glucosinolates have a deterrent activity against predating arthropods such as spider mites (Piasecka et al, 2015;Zhurov et al, 2014); those derived from indolic glucosinolates have antifeedant effects on aphids (Kim et al, 2008). In Arabidopsis thaliana, tryptophan-derived metabolites …”

Cross-talk between high light stress and plant defence to the two-spotted spider mite in Arabidopsis thaliana

“…Recently, several transcriptomic approaches allowed to establish molecular basis of its ability to adapt to different host plant species such as Arabidopsis, tomato and grapevine (Grbić et al 2011;Wybouw et al 2015;Díaz-Riquelme et al 2016;Rioja et al 2017). These thorough analyses often included monitoring of host plant transcriptional dynamics upon TSSM infestation and together with Arabidopsis and tomato focused research (Zhurov et al 2014;Martel et al 2015), gave an extensive overview on gene expression changes occurred starting from the early time points of infestation. However, there is a lack of data on how plants respond to TSSM in the presence of other stresses such as high light.…”

Drought-stressed tomato plants trigger bottom-up effects on key mite pests

“…However, when the whole tomato genome transcriptional response to T. urticae was analyzed, none of the genes encoding SA signaling proteins, nor commonly used SA markers, were differentially expressed . Furthermore, SA-deficient mutants increased the performance of T. urticae on tomato but had no effect on Arabidopsis (Zhurov et al, 2014).…”

“…Furthermore, the importance of the JA pathway for plant resistance to mites was proven by the use of JA-deficient mutants of Arabidopsis that show a higher susceptibility to T. urticae (Zhurov et al, 2014) and of tomato to A. lycopersici .…”