Abstract
Bacterial flagellin is known to stimulate host immune responses in mammals and plants. In Arabidopsis thaliana, the receptor kinase FLS2 mediates flagellin perception through physical interaction with a highly conserved epitope in the N-terminus of flagellin, represented by the peptide flg22 derived from Pseudomonas syringae. The peptide flg22 is highly active as an elicitor in many plant species. In contrast, a shortened version of the same epitope derived from Escherichia coli, flg15E coli, is highly active as an elicitor in tomato but not in A. thaliana or Nicotiana benthamiana. Here, we make use of these species-specific differences in flagellin perception abilities to identify LeFLS2 as the flagellin receptor in tomato. LeFLS2 is most closely related to AtFLS2, indicating that it may represent the flagellin receptor of tomato. Expression of the LeFLS2 gene in Arabidopsis did not result in accumulation of its corresponding gene product, as indicated by experiments with LeFLS2-GFP fusions. In contrast, expression of LeFLS2-GFP fusions in N. benthamiana, a species that, like tomato, belongs to the Solanaceae, was obviously functional. N. benthamiana plants transiently expressing a LeFLS2-GFP fusion acquired responsiveness to flg15E coli to which they are normally unresponsive. Thus, LeFLS2 encodes a functional, specific flagellin receptor, the first to be identified in a plant family other than the Brassicaceae.
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Abbreviations
- At:
-
Arabidopsis thaliana
- BAK1:
-
BRI1-associated kinase 1
- BRI1:
-
Brassinosteroid Insensitive 1
- CDNA:
-
Complementary DNA
- CLV1:
-
CLAVATA 1
- Col-0:
-
Columbia-0
- E. coli :
-
Escherichia coli
- EFR:
-
EF-Tu receptor
- EF-Tu:
-
Elogation factor Tu
- ER:
-
Endoplasmic reticulum
- ERAD:
-
ER-associated protein degradation
- flg22:
-
Flagellin elicitor-active epitope
- FLS2:
-
Flagellin Sensing 2
- GFP:
-
Green fluorescent protein
- GUS:
-
β-Glucoronidase
- Le:
-
Lycopersicum esculentum
- LRR:
-
Leucine-rich repeat
- MAPK:
-
Mitogen-activated protein kinase
- PAMP:
-
Pathogen-associated molecular pattern
- PRR:
-
Pattern recognition receptor
- P. syringae :
-
Pseudomonas syringae
- RACE:
-
Rapid amplification of cDNA ends
- RLK:
-
Receptor-like kinase
- ROS:
-
Reactive oxygen species
- RT-PCR:
-
Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction
- TLR:
-
Toll-like receptor
- Ws-0:
-
Wassilewskaja-0
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Acknowledgements
We thank Dr. Helge Sierotzki (Syngenta, Switzerland) for kindly providing tomato plants variety “Roter Gnom” and Heidrun Häweker for technical support. This work was supported by DFG to S.R. (SFB670), and by a grant of the Swiss National Science Foundation to T.B.
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Robatzek, S., Bittel, P., Chinchilla, D. et al. Molecular identification and characterization of the tomato flagellin receptor LeFLS2, an orthologue of Arabidopsis FLS2 exhibiting characteristically different perception specificities. Plant Mol Biol 64, 539–547 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-007-9173-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-007-9173-8