Effects of nitric oxide on sunflower seedlings: a balance between defense and development

GEORGINA CORTI MONZON; MARIANA REGENTE; MARCELA PINEDO; LORENZO LAMATTINA; LAURA DE LA CANAL

Plant Signaling & Behavior

Landes- Bioscience

Año: 2015 vol. 10

1559-2316

Nitric oxide (NO) is a major plant signaling molecule that plays key roles during plant-pathogen interactions and plant development. Previous work showed the participation of NO in the development and lignin composition of sunflower roots. Thereby, we have hypothesized that NO applications could control the attack of the fungal pathogen Verticillium dahliae in sunflower. Seedlings growing hydroponically were pretreated with NO donors and further inoculated with the fungus. Evaluation of disease symptoms showed that NO pretreatments could not reduce Verticillium wilt. Strikingly, NO donors appear to promote the fungal infection. These results indicate that NO applications were unable to protect sunflower from Verticillium attack and highlight the role played by the fine tunning regulation of NO levels required to balance plant responses between development and defense.