Plant Physiol, November 2000, Vol. 124, pp. 1049-1058
Local and Systemic Induction of Two Defense-Related
Subtilisin-Like Protease Promoters in Transgenic Arabidopsis Plants.
Luciferin Induction of PR Gene
Expression1
Lucia
Jordá and
Pablo
Vera*
Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas,
Universidad Politécnica-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Científicas, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022-Valencia, Spain
Following a pathogenic attack, plants are able to mount a defense
response with the coordinated activation of a battery of defense-related genes. In this study we have characterized the mode of
expression of the P69B and P69C genes
from tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.), which
encodes two closely related subtilisin-like proteases associated with
the defense response. We have compared the mode of gene regulation in
heterologous transgenic Arabidopsis plants harboring
promoter-
-glucuronidase (GUS) and promoter-luciferase (LUC) gene fusions for these two genes. These studies
revealed that the P69B and P69C promoters
are induced by salicylic acid as well as during the course of both a
compatible and an incompatible interaction with Pseudomonas
syringae. Furthermore, P69B and
P69C expression takes place in both the local and the
distal (noninoculated) leaves upon inoculation with bacteria but
following different and unique tissue-specific patterns of expression
that are also different to that described for most other classical
PR genes. Also, we report that luciferin, the substrate
for the reporter luciferase (LUC) gene, is able to
activate expression of PR genes, and this may pose a
problem when using this gene reporter system in studies related to
plant defense.
1
This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry
of Science and Education (grant no. DIGICYT PB96-1055 to P.V.) and by
a Conselleria de Educación y Ciencia de la Generalitat de
Valencia fellowship (to L.J.).
*
Corresponding author; e-mail vera{at}ibmcp.upv.es; fax
34-96-3877859.
© 2000 American Society of Plant Physiologists
