Functional investigation of the plant-specific long coiled-coil proteins PAMP-INDUCED COILED-COIL (PICC) and PICC-LIKE (PICL) in Arabidopsis thaliana

PLoS One. 2013;8(2):e57283. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057283. Epub 2013 Feb 25.

Abstract

We have identified and characterized two Arabidopsis long coiled-coil proteins PAMP-INDUCED COILED-COIL (PICC) and PICC-LIKE (PICL). PICC (147 kDa) and PICL (87 kDa) are paralogs that consist predominantly of a long coiled-coil domain (expanded in PICC), with a predicted transmembrane domain at the immediate C-terminus. Orthologs of PICC and PICL were found exclusively in vascular plants. PICC and PICL GFP fusion proteins are anchored to the cytoplasmic surface of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane by a C-terminal transmembrane domain and a short tail domain, via a tail-anchoring mechanism. T-DNA-insertion mutants of PICC and PICL as well as the double mutant show an increased sensitivity to the plant abiotic stress hormone abscisic acid (ABA) in a post-germination growth response. PICC, but not PICL gene expression is induced by the bacterial pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) flg22. T-DNA insertion alleles of PICC, but not PICL, show increased susceptibility to the non-virulent strain P. syringae pv. tomato DC3000 hrcC, but not to the virulent strain P. syringae pv. tomato DC3000. This suggests that PICC mutants are compromised in PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI). The data presented here provide first evidence for the involvement of a plant long coiled-coil protein in a plant defense response.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Alleles
  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Arabidopsis / genetics
  • Arabidopsis / physiology*
  • Arabidopsis Proteins / chemistry
  • Arabidopsis Proteins / genetics
  • Arabidopsis Proteins / physiology*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Plants, Genetically Modified
  • Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction

Substances

  • Arabidopsis Proteins

Grants and funding

This work has been funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF-MCB-0641271; http://www.nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?div=MCB). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.