Oxygen transfer rate identifies priming compounds in parsley cells.

BACKGROUND: In modern agriculture, the call for an alternative crop protection strategy increases because of the desired reduction of fungicide and pesticide use and the continuously evolving resistance of pathogens and pests to agrochemicals. The direct activation of the plant immune system does not provide a promising plant protection measure because of high fitness costs. However, upon treatment with certain natural or synthetic compounds, plant cells can promote to a fitness cost-saving, primed state of enhanced defense. In the primed state, plants respond to biotic and abiotic stress with faster and stronger activation of defense, and this is often associated with immunity and abiotic stress tolerance. Until now, the identification of chemical compounds with priming-inducing activity (so-called plant activators) relied on tedious and invasive approaches, or required the late detection of secreted furanocoumarin phytoalexins in parsley cell cultures. Thus, simple, fast, straightforward, and noninvasive techniques for identifying priming-inducing compounds for plant protection are very welcome. RESULTS: This report demonstrates that a respiration activity-monitoring system (RAMOS) can identify compounds with defense priming-inducing activity in parsley cell suspension in culture. RAMOS relies on the quasi-continuous, noninvasive online determination of the oxygen transfer rate (OTR). Treatment of parsley culture cells with the known plant activator salicylic acid (SA), a natural plant defense signal, resulted in an OTR increase. Addition of the defense elicitor Pep13, a cell wall peptide of Phythophthora sojae, induced two distinctive OTR peaks that were higher in SA-primed cells than in unprimed cells upon Pep13 challenge. Both, the OTR increase after priming with SA and the Pep13 challenge were dose-dependent. Furthermore, there was a close correlation of a compound's activity to enhance the oxygen consumption in parsley cells and its capacity to prime Pep13-induced furanocoumarin secretion as evaluated by fluorescence spectroscopy. CONCLUSIONS: RAMOS noninvasively determines the OTR as a measure of the metabolic activity of plant cells. Chemical enhancement of oxygen consumption by salicylic derivatives in parsley cell suspension cultures correlates with the induction of the primed state of enhanced defense that enhances the quantity of Pep13-induced furanocoumarin phytoalexins. Treatment with the priming-active compounds methyl jasmonate and pyraclostrobin also resulted in an enhanced respiration activity. Thus, RAMOS is a novel technology for identifying priming-inducing compounds for agriculture.

Carbonic anhydrase: a key regulatory and detoxifying enzyme for Karst plants.

Karstification is a rapid process during which calcidic stones/limestones undergo dissolution with the consequence of a desertification of karst regions. A slow-down of those dissolution processes of Ca-carbonate can be approached by a reforestation program using karst-resistant plants that can resist alkaline pH and higher bicarbonate (HCO3⁻) concentrations in the soil. Carbonic anhydrases (CA) are enzymes that mediate a rapid and reversible interconversion of CO2 and HCO3⁻. In the present study, the steady-state expression of a CA gene, encoding for the plant carbonic anhydrase from the parsley Petroselinum crispum, is monitored. The studies were primarily been performed during germination of the seeds up to the 12/14-day-old embryos. The CA cDNA was cloned. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) analysis revealed that the gene expression level of the P. crispum CA is strongly and significantly affected at more alkaline pH in the growth medium (pH 8.3). This abolishing effect is counteracted both by addition of HCO3⁻ and by addition of polyphosphate (polyP) to the culture medium. In response to polyP, the increased pH in the vacuoles of the growing plants is normalized. The effect of polyP let us to propose that this polymer acts as a buffer system that facilitates the adjustment of the pH in the cytoplasm. In addition, it is proposed that polyP has the potential to act, especially in the karst, as a fertilizer that allows the karstic plants to cope with the adverse pH and HCO3⁻ condition in the soil.

Separable roles of the Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola accessory protein HrpZ1 in ion-conducting pore formation and activation of plant immunity.

The HrpZ1 gene product from phytopathogenic Pseudomonas syringae is secreted in a type-III secretion system-dependent manner during plant infection. The ability of HrpZ1 to form ion-conducting pores is proposed to contribute to bacterial effector delivery into host cells, or may facilitate the nutrition of bacteria in the apoplast. Furthermore, HrpZ1 is reminiscent of a pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) that triggers immunity-associated responses in a variety of plants. Here, we provide evidence that the ion pore formation and immune activation activities of HrpZ1 have different structure requirements. All HrpZ1 orthologous proteins tested possess pore formation activities, but some of these proteins fail to trigger plant defense-associated responses. In addition, a C-terminal fragment of HrpZ1 retains the ability to activate plant immunity, whereas ion pore formation requires intact HrpZ1. Random insertion mutagenesis of HrpZ1 further revealed the C terminus to be important for the PAMP activity of the protein. HrpZ1 binds to plant membranes with high affinity and specificity, suggesting that the activation of plant immunity-associated responses by HrpZ1 is receptor-mediated. Our data are consistent with dual roles of HrpZ1 as a virulence factor affecting host membrane integrity, and as a microbial pattern governing the activation of plant immunity during infection.