Study of the role of a tomato wall-associated kinase (SlWAK1) in the defense against Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato

POMBO, MARINA ALEJANDRA; MARTIN, GREGORY; ROSLI, HERNÁN GUILLERMO

Congreso; LV Annual SAIB meeting and XIV PABMB congress; 2019

Plants count on a two-layered immune system to control and restrict pathogens. The first one, pattern-triggered immunity (PTI), is activated when cell surface receptors perceive microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) such as the epitope flg22 from bacterial flagellin. Certain bacterial pathogens as Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 (Pst DC3000), are able to deliver into the cytoplasm effector proteins to suppress PTI and alter metabolic processes in order to proliferate in the apoplast. The second layer of immunity, effector-triggered immunity (ETI), is activated when one of these effectors is perceived by resistance proteins and leads to a hypersensitive response that controls bacterial growth.We have previously identified using a transcriptomic-based approach, SlWAK1 (Solanum lycopersicum Wall-Associated Kinase) as a gene whose expression is induced by flagellin perception and suppressed by two Pst DC3000 effectors, AvrPto and AvrPtoB. To test its participation in plant immunity we silenced Nicotiana benthamiana plants using virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) with an SlWAK1-based construct. In this work, we confirmed the previous results using new alternative VIGS constructs. Also, we analyzed the silenced plants using different PTI inducers. Our results demonstrate that flagellin-mediated PTI is required for SlWAK1 transcriptional activation and that some other ligand could be perceived through SlWAK1 leading to a more robust or prolonged PTI.