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PLANTS INTERACTING WITH OTHER ORGANISMS

Rewiring Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Cascade by Positive Feedback Confers Potato Blight Resistance¹

Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Chikusa, Nagoya 464–8601, Japan (C.Y., K. Kuchimura, S.K., K. Kawakita, N.D., H.Y.); Department of Upland Agriculture, National Agricultural Research Center of Hokkaido Region, Memuro, Hokkaido 082–0071, Japan (A.K.); and Sainsbury Laboratory, John Innes Centre, Norwich NR4 7UH, United Kingdom (J.D.G.J.)

Late blight, caused by the notorious pathogen Phytophthora infestans, is a devastating disease of potato (Solanum tuberosum) and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), and during the 1840s caused the Irish potato famine and over one million fatalities. Currently, grown potato cultivars lack adequate blight tolerance. Earlier cultivars bred for resistance used disease resistance genes that confer immunity only to some strains of the pathogen harboring corresponding avirulence gene. Specific resistance gene-mediated immunity and chemical controls are rapidly overcome in the field when new pathogen races arise through mutation, recombination, or migration from elsewhere. A mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade plays a pivotal role in plant innate immunity. Here we show that the transgenic potato plants that carry a constitutively active form of MAPK kinase driven by a pathogen-inducible promoter of potato showed high resistance to early blight pathogen Alternaria solani as well as P. infestans. The pathogen attack provoked defense-related MAPK activation followed by induction of NADPH oxidase gene expression, which is implicated in reactive oxygen species production, and resulted in hypersensitive response-like phenotype. We propose that enhancing disease resistance through altered regulation of plant defense mechanisms should be more durable and publicly acceptable than engineering overexpression of antimicrobial proteins.

The author responsible for distribution of materials integral to the findings presented in this article in accordance with the policy described in the Instructions for Authors (www.plantphysiol.org) is: Hirofumi Yoshioka (hyoshiok{at}agr.nagoya-u.ac.jp).

Article, publication date, and citation information can be found at www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.105.074906.

^* Corresponding author; e-mail hyoshiok{at}agr.nagoya-u.ac.jp; fax 81–52–789–5525.

Received November 30, 2005; returned for revision November 30, 2005; accepted December 16, 2005.

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