INBIOTEC   24408
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES EN BIODIVERSIDAD Y BIOTECNOLOGIA
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
TOR complex and Arabidopsis-pathogen interaction
Autor/es:
MARTÍNEZ NOËL G; CONSOLO F; AZNAR N; SALERNO G
Lugar:
Buenos Aires
Reunión:
Congreso; XXXIX Reunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigaciones en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular; 2013
Resumen:
The TOR (Target Of Rapamycin) pathway is a major controller of growth-related processes in eukaryotes. The plant TOR complex comprises the TOR kinase, and the proteins Raptor and LST8. If environmental conditions are favorable, the TOR pathway promotes cell and organ growth and limits catabolic processes like autophagy. There must exist a balance between growth and disease resistance, thus TOR signaling should be regulated in a biotic stress situation. We studied plant-pathogen interactions in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, using mutants in different TOR complex proteins. Plants of 20-25 days-old were sprayed with a fungus solution and incubated in a humid chamber with 16/8 h ligth/dark photoperiod, at 23±1ºC for 14 days. We assayed Fusarium graminearum and Botrytis cynerea strains isolated from Provincia de Buenos Aires (FCCF1 and FCCB1, respectively), two important pathogens that cause major agronomic crop losses. Our results show that the mutant 1BRaptor is tolerant to Fusarium whereas it was susceptible to the fungus Botrytis. In accordance, Fusarium-inoculated 1BRaptor plants do not present fungus growth or cell death, evidenced by trypan-blue and evans-blue staining. On the other hand, the LST8.2 mutant resulted susceptible to the infection of both fungi. However, mutant plants were able to partially recover at the end of the infection assay with Fusarium. Infection of LST8.2 mutant with Botrytis was slower than that of wt plants. Gene expression was analysed in inoculated leaves up to 3 days of treatment. Although additional experiments are needed to understand the role of the TOR complex, our results indicate that the TOR signaling pathway could be involved in biotic stress response.