SR45a plays a key role in enhancing cotton resistance to Verticillium dahliae by alternative splicing of immunity genes

Alternative splicing (AS) of pre-mRNAs increases the diversity of transcriptome and proteome and plays fundamental roles in plant development and stress responses. However, the prevalent changes in AS events and the regulating mechanisms of plants in response to pathogens remain largely unknown. Here, we show that AS changes are an important mechanism conferring cotton immunity to Verticillium dahliae (Vd). GauSR45a, encoding a serine/arginine-rich RNA binding protein, was upregulated expression and underwent AS in response to Vd infection in Gossypium australe, a wild diploid cotton species highly resistant to Vd. Silencing GauSR45a substantially reduced the splicing ratio of Vd-induced immune-associated genes, including GauBAK1 (BRI1-associated kinase 1) and GauCERK1 (chitin elicitor receptor kinase 1). GauSR45a binds to the GAAGA motif that is commonly found in the pre-mRNA of genes essential for PTI, ETI, and defense. The binding between GauSR45a and the GAAGA motif in the pre-mRNA of BAK1 was enhanced by two splicing factors of GauU2AF35B and GauU1-70 K, thereby facilitating exon splicing; silencing either AtU2AF35B or AtU1-70 K decreased the resistance to Vd in transgenic GauSR45a Arabidopsis. Overexpressing the short splicing variant of BAK1GauBAK1.1 resulted in enhanced Verticillium wilt resistance rather than the long one GauBAK1.2. Vd-induced far more AS events were in G. barbadense (resistant tetraploid cotton) than those in G. hirsutum (susceptible tetraploid cotton) during Vd infection, indicating resistance divergence in immune responses at a genome-wide scale. We provided evidence showing a fundamental mechanism by which GauSR45a enhances cotton resistance to Vd through global regulation of AS of immunity genes.

General Regulatory Factor7 regulates innate immune signalling to enhance Verticillium wilt resistance in cotton

Sessile growing plants are always vulnerable to microbial pathogen attacks throughout their lives. To fend off pathogen invasion, plants have evolved a sophisticated innate immune system that consists of cell surface receptors and intracellular receptors. Somatic embryogenesis receptor kinases (SERKs) belong to a small group of leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinases (LRR-RLKs) that function as co-receptors regulating diverse physiological processes. GENRAL REGULATORY FACTOR (GRF) proteins play an important role in physiological signalling transduction. However, the function of GRF proteins in plant innate immune signalling remains elusive. Here, we identified a GRF gene, GauGRF7, that is expressed both constitutively and in response to fungal pathogen infection. Intriguingly, silencing of GRF7 compromised plant innate immunity, resulting in susceptibility to Verticillium dahliae infection. Both transgenic GauGRF7 cotton and transgenic GauGRF7 Arabidopsis lines enhanced the innate immune response to V. dahliae infection, leading to high expression of two helper NLRs (hNLR) genes (ADR1 and NRG1) and pathogenesis-related genes, and increased ROS production and salicylic acid level. Moreover, GauGRF7 interacted with GhSERK1, which positively regulated GRF7-mediated innate immune response in cotton and Arabidopsis. Our findings revealed the molecular mechanism of the GRF protein in plant immune signaling and offer potential opportunities for improving plant resistance to V. dahliae infection.

RVE2, a new regulatory factor in jasmonic acid pathway, orchestrates resistance to Verticillium wilt

Verticillium dahliae, one of the most destructive fungal pathogens of several crops, challenges the sustainability of cotton productivity worldwide because very few widely-cultivated Upland cotton varieties are resistant to Verticillium wilt (VW). Here, we report that REVEILLE2 (RVE2), the Myb-like transcription factor, confers the novel function in resistance to VW by regulating the jasmonic acid (JA) pathway in cotton. RVE2 expression was essentially required for the activation of JA-mediated disease-resistance response. RVE2 physically interacted with TPL/TPRs and disturbed JAZ proteins to recruit TPL and TPR1 in NINJA-dependent manner, which regulated JA response by relieving inhibited-MYC2 activity. The MYC2 then bound to RVE2 promoter for the activation of its transcription, forming feedback loop. Interestingly, a unique truncated RVE2 widely existing in D-subgenome (GhRVE2D) of natural Upland cotton represses the ability of the MYC2 to activate GhRVE2A promoter but not GausRVE2 or GbRVE2. The result could partially explain why Gossypium barbadense popularly shows higher resistance than Gossypium hirsutum. Furthermore, disturbing the JA-signalling pathway resulted into the loss of RVE2-mediated disease-resistance in various plants (Arabidopsis, tobacco and cotton). RVE2 overexpression significantly enhanced the resistance to VW. Collectively, we conclude that RVE2, a new regulatory factor, plays a pivotal role in fine-tuning JA-signalling, which would improve our understanding the mechanisms underlying the resistance to VW.

ATP-citrate lyase B (ACLB) negatively affects cell death and resistance to Verticillium wilt

BACKGROUND

ATP-citrate lyase (ACL) plays a pivotal role in histone acetylation and aerobic glycolysis. In plant, ACL is a heteromeric enzyme composed of ACLA (45 kD) and ACLB (65 kD). So far, the function of ACL genes in cotton still remains unknown.

RESULTS

Here, we identified three ACLA homologous sequences and two ACLB homologous in each genome/sub-genome of cotton species. Silencing ACLB in cotton led to cell death at newly-grown leaves and stem apexes. Simultaneously, in ACLB-silenced plants, transcription factors related to senescence including SGR, WRKY23 and Osl57 were observed to be activated. Further investigation showed that excessive H₂O₂ was accumulated, salicylic acid-dependent defense response and pathogenesis-related gene expressions were evidently enhanced in ACLB-silenced plants, implying that knockdown of ACLB genes leads to hypersensitive response-like cell death in cotton seedlings. However, as noted, serious cell death happened in newly-grown leaves and stem apexes in ACLB-silenced plants, which led to the failure of subsequent fungal pathogenicity assays. To confirm the role of ACLB gene in regulating plant immune response, the dicotyledonous model plant Arabidopsis was selected for functional verification of ACLB gene. Our results indicate the resistance to Verticillium dahliae infection in the Arabidopsis mutant aclb-2 were enhanced without causing strong cell death. Ectopic expression of GausACLB-2 in Arabidopsis weakened its resistance to V. dahliae either in Col-0 or in aclb-2 background, in which the expression level of ACLB is negatively correlated with the resistance to V. dahliae.

CONCLUSIONS

These results indicate that ACLB has a new function in negatively affecting the induction of plant defense response and cell death in cotton, which provides theoretical guidance for developing cotton varieties with resistance against Verticillium wilt.