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A hot pepper gene encoding WRKY transcription factor is induced during hypersensitive response to Tobacco mosaic virus and Xanthomonas campestris

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Abstract

Plant WRKY transcription factors were previously implicated in the alteration of gene expression in response to various pathogens. The WRKY proteins constitute a large family of plant transcription factors, whose precise functions have yet to be elucidated. Using a domain-specific differential display procedure, we isolated a WRKY gene, which is rapidly induced during an incompatible interaction between hot pepper and Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) or Xanthomonas campestris pv . vesicatoria (Xcv). The full-length cDNA of CaWRKY-a (Capsicum annuum WRKY-a) encodes a putative polypeptide of 546 amino acids, containing two WRKY domains with a zinc finger motif. The expression of CaWRKY-a could be rapidly induced by not only chemical elicitor such as salicylic acid (SA) or ethephon but also wounding treatments. The nuclear localization of CaWRKY-a was determined in transient expression system using tobacco BY-2 cells by polyethylene glycol (PEG)-mediated transformation experiment. With oligonucleotide molecules containing the putative W-box sequences as a probe, we confirmed that CaWRKY-a protein had W-box-binding activity. These results suggest that CaWRKY-a might be involved as a transcription factor in plant defense-related signal transduction pathways.

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Abbreviations

CaWRKY-a:

Capsicum annuum WRKY-a

HR:

Hypersensitive response

MeJA:

Methyl jasmonate

PR:

Pathogenesis related

SA:

Salicylic acid

TMV:

Tobacco mosaic virus

Xcv:

Xanthomonas campestris pv . vesicatoria

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Acknowledgements

We thank to the members of Dr. Paek’s laboratory for helpful discussions during the work. This study was supported partly by a grant from the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation to the Plant Signaling Network Research Center a grant (CG1223) from the Crop Functional Genomics Center funded by the Korea Ministry of Science and Technology, and BioGreen grant from the Rural Development Administration.

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  1. Chang-** Park

    Present address: Department of Plant Pathology, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

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  1. School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Korea University, 1, 5-ga, Anam-dong, Sungbuk-gu, Seoul, 136-701, Republic of Korea

    Chang-** Park, Yun-Chul Shin, Boo-Ja Lee, Ki-Jeong Kim, Jeong-Kook Kim & Kyung-Hee Paek

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  1. Chang-** Park
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  2. Yun-Chul Shin
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Correspondence to Kyung-Hee Paek.

Additional information

The nucleotide sequence data reported in this paper were submitted to the EMBL, GenBank and DDBJ Nucleotide Sequence Databases under the accession number AY391747.

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Park, CJ., Shin, YC., Lee, BJ. et al. A hot pepper gene encoding WRKY transcription factor is induced during hypersensitive response to Tobacco mosaic virus and Xanthomonas campestris . Planta 223, 168–179 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-005-0067-1

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