Xie, M., et al. 2020. New Phytologist

Arabidopsis C-terminal binding protein ANGUSTIFOLIA modulates transcriptional co-regulation of MYB46 and WRKY33

Meng Xie, Jin Zhang, Tao Yao, Anthony C. Bryan, Yunqiao Pu, Jessy Labbé, Dale A. Pelletier, Nancy Engle, Jennifer L. Morrell-Falvey, Jeremy Schmutz, Arthur J. Ragauskas, Timothy J. Tschaplinski, Feng Chen, Gerald A. Tuskan, Wellington Muchero and Jin-Gui Chen

24-July-2020; New Phytologist 22(5): 1627-1639; doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.16826

Summary

• The apparent antagonism between Salicylic Acid (SA) and Jasmonic acid (JA)/Ethylene (ET) signaling resulting in tradeoffs between defense against (hemi)biotrophic and necrotrophic pathogens has been widely described across multiple plant species. However, the underlying mechanism remains to be fully established.
• The molecular and cellular function of ANGUSTIFOLIA (AN) were characterized, and its roles in regulating pathogenic response were studied in Arabidopsis.
• We demonstrated that AN, a plant homolog of mammalian C‐TERMINAL BINDING PROTEIN (CtBP), antagonistically regulates plant resistance to the hemibiotrophic pathogen Pseudomonas syringae and the necrotrophic pathogen Botrytis cinerea . Consistent with the phenotypic observations, transcription of genes involved in SA and JA/ET pathways was antagonistically regulated by AN. By interacting with another nuclear protein TYROSYL‐DNA PHOSPHODIESTERASE1 (TDP1), AN imposes transcriptional repression on MYB46 , encoding a transcriptional activator of PHENYLALANINE AMMONIA‐LYASE (PAL ) genes which are required for SA biosynthesis, while releasing the TDP1‐imposed transcriptional repression on WRKY33 , a master regulator of the JA/ET signaling pathway.
• These findings demonstrate that the transcriptional co‐regulation of MYB46 and WRKY33 by AN mediates the coordination of SA and JA/ET pathways to optimize defenses against (hemi)biotrophic and necrotrophic pathogens.

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