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Articles

Phytoalexin Induction in French Bean ¹

Intercellular Transmission of Elicitation in Cell Suspension Cultures and Hypocotyl Sections of Phaseolus vulgaris

Department of Biochemistry, Royal Holloway College, University of London, Egham Hill, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX United Kingdom, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford 0X1 3QU United Kingdom

Treatment of hypocotyl sections or cell suspension cultures of dwarf French bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) with an abiotic elicitor (denatured ribonuclease A) resulted in increased extractable activity of the enzyme L-phenylalanine ammonia-lyase. This induction could be transmitted from treated cells through a dialysis membrane to cells which were not in direct contact with the elicitor. In hypocotyl sections, induction of isoflavonoid phytoalexin accumulation was also transmitted across a dialysis membrane, although levels of insoluble, lignin-like phenolic material remained unchanged in elicitor-treated and control sections. In bean cell suspension cultures, the induction of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase in cells separated from ribonuclease-treated cells by a dialysis membrane was also accompanied by increases in the activities of chalcone synthase and chalcone isomerase, two enzymes previously implicated in the phytoalexin defense response. Such intercellular transmission of elicitation did not occur in experiments with cells treated with a biotic elicitor preparation heat-released from the cell walls of the bean pathogen Colletotrichum lindemuthianum. The results confirm and extend previous suggestions that a low molecular weight, diffusible factor of host plant origin is involved (in French bean) in the intercellular transmission of the elicitation response to abiotic elicitors.

³ Present address: The Salk Institute, P.O. Box 85800, San Diego, CA 92138.

¹ Supported by a United Kingdom Agricultural Research Council grant and an equipment grant from the University of London Central Research Fund.