Publikationen - Molekulare Signalverarbeitung

Among the plant hormones jasmonic acid and related derivatives are known to mediate stress responses and several developmental processes. Biosynthesis, regulation, and metabolism of jasmonic acid in Arabidopsis thaliana are reviewed, including properties of mutants of jasmonate biosynthesis. The individual signalling properties of several jasmonates are described.

Plants respond to mechanical wounding or herbivore attack with a complex scenario of sequential, antagonistic or synergistic action of different signals leading to defense gene expression. Tomato plants were used as a model system since the peptide systemin and the lipid-derived jasmonic acid (JA) were recognized as essential signals in wound-induced gene expression. In this review recent data are discussed with emphasis on wound-signaling in tomato. The following aspects are covered: (i) systemin signaling, (ii) JA biosynthesis and action, (iii) orchestration of various signals such as JA, H2O2, NO, and salicylate, (iv) local and systemic response, and (v) amplification in wound signaling. The common occurrence of JA biosynthesis and systemin generation in the vascular bundles suggest JA as the systemic signal. Grafting experiments with JA-deficient, JA-insensitive and systemin-insensitive mutants strongly support this assumption.

In the present paper we study the possible biological relevance of endogenous jasmonic acid (JA) and exogenous salicylic acid (SA) in a plant-microbial system maize-virus. The virus disease "Mal de Río Cuarto" is caused by the maize rough dwarf virus - Río Cuarto. The characteristic symptoms are the appearance of galls or "enations" in leaves, shortening of the stem internodes, poor radical system and general stunting. Changes in JA and protein pattern in maize control and infected plants of a virus-tolerant cultivar were investigated. Healthy and infected-leaf discs were collected for JA measurement at different post-infection times (20, 40, 60 and 68 days). JA was also measured in roots on day 60 after infection. For SDS-PAGE protein analysis, leaf discs were also harvested on day 60 after infection. Infected leaves showed higher levels of JA than healthy leaves, and the rise in endogenous JA coincided with the enation formation. The soluble protein amount did not show differences between infected and healthy leaves; moreover, no difference in the expression of soluble protein was revealed by SDS-PAGE. Our results show that the octadecanoid pathway was stimulated in leaves and roots of the tolerant maize cultivar when infected by this virus. This finding, together with fewer plants with the disease symptoms, suggest that higher foliar and roots JA content may be related to disease tolerance. SA exogenous treatment caused the reversion of the dwarfism symptom.

In tomato plants wounding leads to up-regulation of various plant defense genes via jasmonates (Ryan, 1992; Bergey et al., 1996). Using this model system of jasmonic acid (JA) signalling, we analyzed activity of octadecanoids to express JA-responsive genes. Leaf treatments were performed with naturally occurring octadecanoids and their molecular mimics such as coronatine or indanone conjugates. JA responses were recorded in terms of up- or down-regulation of various genes by analyzing transcript accumulation, and at least partially in vitro translation products and polypeptide pattern of leaf extracts. The data suggest: (i) 12-Oxo-phytodienoic acid and other intermediates of the octadecanoid pathway has to be ß-oxidized to give a JA response, (ii) Octadecanoids which can not be ß-oxidized are inactive, (iii) JA, its methyl ester (JM), and its amino acid conjugates are most active signals in tomato leaves leading to up regulation of mainly wound-inducible genes and down-regulation of mainly <house-keeping> genes, (iv) Some compounds carrying a JA/JM- or JA amino acid conjugate-like structure induce/repress only a subset of genes suggesting diversity of JA signalling.

In barley leaves, the application of (−)-jasmonic acid or its methyl ester (JAME) induces a senescencelike phenotype. This is accompanied by the synthesis of abundant proteins, so-called jasmonate-induced proteins (JlPs). Here, we show that modifications of vacuolar H+-ATPase (V-ATPase) subunits are jasmo-nate inducible. Using immunofluorescence analysis, we demonstrate that V-ATPase of barley leaves is exclusively located at the tonoplast also upon JAME treatment. Total ATP-hydrolysis activity of microsomal fractions increased by a factor of 10 during 72 h of JAME-treatment, while Bafilomycin Ai-sensitive ATP-hydrolysis activity, which is usually referred to V-ATPase activity, increased by a factor of about 2 in tono-plast-enriched membrane fractions. Moreover, due to JAME treatment there was a pronounced increase in ATP-hydrolysis activity at pH 6.2. This activity was not affected by inhibitors of P-, F-, or V-ATPases. However, biochemical analysis of partially purified V-ATPase suggests, that this activity might be due at least in part to the V-ATPase. JAME-treatment seems to change biochemical properties of the V-ATPase, i.e. a shift of the pH optimum of activity to a more acidic pH and a decrease in Bafilomycin A1 sensitivity. This is accompanied by the appearance of several additional forms of V-ATPase subunits which might represent either different isoforms or post-translationally modified proteins. We suggest that these changes in properties of the V-ATPase, which is involved in house-keeping and stress responses, may be due to JAME-induced senescence to overcome concomitant changes of the vacuolar membrane.