HvMPK4 phosphorylates HvWRKY1 to enhance its suppression of barley immunity to powdery mildew fungus

Pengya Xue; Ling Zhang; Renchun Fan; Yanan Li; Xinyun Han; Ting Qi; Lifang Zhao; Deshui Yu; Qian-Hua Shen

doi:10.1016/j.jgg.2023.05.005

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HvMPK4 phosphorylates HvWRKY1 to enhance its suppression of barley immunity to powdery mildew fungus

doi: 10.1016/j.jgg.2023.05.005

Pengya Xue^{a, b, c},
Ling Zhang^a,
Renchun Fan^{a, b},
Yanan Li^{a, b},
Xinyun Han^a,
Ting Qi^{a, b},
Lifang Zhao^{a, b},
Deshui Yu^{a, b, d},
Qian-Hua Shen^{a, b}

a
State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Innovation Academy for Seed Design, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
b
CAS Center for Excellence in Biotic Interactions, College of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
c
Department of Nutritional Sciences & Toxicology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
d
Lushan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Science, Jiujiang, Jiangxi 332900, China

Funds: We thank Yunhai Li lab for the vectors used in BiFC and LCI assay and technique advice for EMSA and protoplast transfection assays, Jian-Min Zhou lab and Dr. Xiaojing Dong for technique advice for MAPK activation analysis, Yanjun Cheng and Jianqing Xiong for generating transgenic barley. This research was funded by the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFD1000703, 2018YFD1000700), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDPB16)，and National Program on Research and Development of Transgenic Plants (2016ZX08009-003-001).

Received Date: 2022-11-06
Revised Date: 2023-05-07
Accepted Date: 2023-05-09

Available Online: 2023-05-22

Abstract

Abstract

Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades play important roles in disease resistance in model plant species. However, the functions of MAPK signaling pathways in crop disease resistance are largely unknown. Here we report the function of HvMKK1-HvMPK4-HvWRKY1 module in barley immune system. HvMPK4 is identified to play a negative role in barley immune response against Bgh, as virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) of HvMPK4 results in enhanced disease resistance whilst stably overexpressing HvMPK4 leads to super-susceptibility to Bgh infection. Furthermore, the barley MAPK kinase HvMKK1 is found to specifically interact with HvMPK4, and the activated HvMKK1^DD variant specifically phosphorylates HvMPK4 in vitro. Moreover, the transcription factor HvWRKY1 is identified to be a downstream target of HvMPK4, and phosphorylated by HvMPK4 in vitro in the presence of HvMKK1^DD. Phosphorylation assay coupled with mutagenesis analyses identifies S122, T284, and S347 in HvWRKY1 as the major residues phosphorylated by HvMPK4. HvWRKY1 is phosphorylated in barley at early stages of Bgh infection, which enhances its suppression on barley immunity likely due to enhanced DNA-binding and transcriptional repression activity. Our data suggest that the HvMKK1-HvMPK4 kinase pair acts upstream of HvWRKY1 to negatively regulate barley immunity against powdery mildew.
- barley,
- MPK4,
- WRKY1,
- phosphorylation,
- disease resistance,
- powdery mildew

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References(62)

References

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