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PLANTS INTERACTING WITH OTHER ORGANISMS

Engineered Polyamine Catabolism Preinduces Tolerance of Tobacco to Bacteria and Oomycetes^{1,[C],[W],[OA]}

Department of Biology, University of Crete, Crete, 71409 Heraklion, Greece (P.N.M., P.F.S., N.S., A.H.A., K.A.P., N.J.P., K.A.R.-A.); and Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Foundation for Research and Technology, Hellas, Heraklion 71110, Greece (P.F.S., N.S., N.J.P.)

Polyamine oxidase (PAO) catalyzes the oxidative catabolism of spermidine and spermine, generating hydrogen peroxide. In wild-type tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum ‘Xanthi’) plants, infection by the compatible pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv tabaci resulted in increased PAO gene and corresponding PAO enzyme activities; polyamine homeostasis was maintained by induction of the arginine decarboxylase pathway and spermine was excreted into the apoplast, where it was oxidized by the enhanced apoplastic PAO, resulting in higher hydrogen peroxide accumulation. Moreover, plants overexpressing PAO showed preinduced disease tolerance against the biotrophic bacterium P. syringae pv tabaci and the hemibiotrophic oomycete Phytophthora parasitica var nicotianae but not against the Cucumber mosaic virus. Furthermore, in transgenic PAO-overexpressing plants, systemic acquired resistance marker genes as well as a pronounced increase in the cell wall-based defense were found before inoculation. These results reveal that PAO is a nodal point in a specific apoplast-localized plant-pathogen interaction, which also signals parallel defense responses, thus preventing pathogen colonization. This strategy presents a novel approach for producing transgenic plants resistant to a broad spectrum of plant pathogens.

² These authors contributed equally to the article.

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: Kalliopi A. Roubelakis-Angelakis (poproube{at}biology.uoc.gr).

^[C] Some figures in this article are displayed in color online but in black and white in the print edition.

^[W] The online version of this article contains Web-only data.

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www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.108.134932

^* Corresponding author; e-mail poproube{at}biology.uoc.gr.

Received December 24, 2008; accepted February 4, 2009; published February 13, 2009.