OsTGA2 confers disease resistance to rice against leaf blight by regulating expression levels of disease related genes via interaction with NH1

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 13; no. 11; p. e0206910
• Main Authors: Moon, Seok-Jun, Park, Hee Jin, Kim, Tae-Heon, Kang, Ju-Won, Lee, Ji-Yoon, Cho, Jun-Hyun, Lee, Jong-Hee, Park, Dong-Soo, Byun, Myung-Ok, Kim, Beom-Gi, Shin, Dongjin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 16.11.2018; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Acids; Agricultural production; Arabidopsis; Bacteria; Binding; Biology and Life Sciences; Blight; Crop diseases; Crop production; Crop science; Defense mechanisms; Deoxyribonucleic acid; Dimers; Disease resistance; DNA; DNA microarrays; Engineering; Engineering and Technology; Gene expression; Genes; Homology; Immunity; Infections; Jasmonic acid; Leaf blight; Leaves; Mer protein; Methyl jasmonate; Microorganisms; Nucleotide sequence; Pathogenesis; Pathogens; Phosphorylation; Protein arrays; Proteins; Research and Analysis Methods; Rice; Salicylic acid; Signal transduction; Tobacco; Transcription factors; Xanthomonas oryzae; South Korea
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206910

How plants defend themselves from microbial infection is one of the most critical issues for sustainable crop production. Some TGA transcription factors belonging to bZIP superfamily can regulate disease resistance through NPR1-mediated immunity mechanisms in Arabidopsis. Here, we examined biological roles of OsTGA2 (grouped into the same subclade as Arabidopsis TGAs) in bacterial leaf blight resistance. Transcriptional level of OsTGA2 was accumulated after treatment with salicylic acid, methyl jasmonate, and Xathomonas oryzae pv. Oryzae (Xoo), a bacterium causing serious blight of rice. OsTGA2 formed homo- and hetero-dimer with OsTGA3 and OsTGA5 and interacted with rice NPR1 homologs 1 (NH1) in rice. Results of quadruple 9-mer protein-binding microarray analysis indicated that OsTGA2 could bind to TGACGT DNA sequence. Overexpression of OsTGA2 increased resistance of rice to bacterial leaf blight, although overexpression of OsTGA3 resulted in disease symptoms similar to wild type plant upon Xoo infection. Overexpression of OsTGA2 enhanced the expression of defense related genes containing TGA binding cis-element in the promoter such as AP2/EREBP 129, ERD1, and HOP1. These results suggest that OsTGA2 can directly regulate the expression of defense related genes and increase the resistance of rice against bacterial leaf blight disease.