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Salicylic Acid Induces the Expression of a Number of Receptor-Like Kinase Genes in Arabidopsis thaliana

2000; Oxford University Press; Volume: 41; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/pcp/pcd028

1471-9053

Yuhko OHTAKE, Taku Takahashi, Yoshibumi Komeda,

Plant Stress Responses and Tolerance

Receptor-like protein kinases (RLKs) are encoded by a divergent multigene family and their functions have been implicated in a wide range of signal transduction pathways. In this study, we examined the effect of salicylic acid (SA) on the expression of RLK genes in Arabidopsis thaliana . RNA gel blot analysis revealed that transcripts of RKC1 and a number of its homologs, whose translation products contain C-X8-C-X2-C motifs in the putative extracellular domain, accumulated to a higher level in response to SA treatment of plants. The chimeric fusion between the RKC1 5′-upstream region and the β-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene reproduced the SA responsiveness in transgenic plants. In addition, some of RLK genes of the leucine-rich repeat (LRR) class and those of the S-domain class were also induced by SA. We found that the upstream regions of these SA-responsive RLK genes contain the TTGAC sequence, which has been suggested to be important for induced expression of many plant defense genes. These results suggest the involvement of a number of RLKs in SA-mediated defense responses.