Abiotic Stresses Antagonize the Rice Defence Pathway through the Tyrosine-Dephosphorylation of OsMPK6

PLoS Pathog. 2015 Oct 20;11(10):e1005231. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1005231. eCollection 2015 Oct.

Abstract

Plants, as sessile organisms, survive environmental changes by prioritizing their responses to the most life-threatening stress by allocating limited resources. Previous studies showed that pathogen resistance was suppressed under abiotic stresses. Here, we show the mechanism underlying this phenomenon. Phosphorylation of WRKY45, the central transcription factor in salicylic-acid (SA)-signalling-dependent pathogen defence in rice, via the OsMKK10-2-OsMPK6 cascade, was required to fully activate WRKY45. The activation of WRKY45 by benzothiadiazole (BTH) was reduced under low temperature and high salinity, probably through abscisic acid (ABA) signalling. An ABA treatment dephosphorylated/inactivated OsMPK6 via protein tyrosine phosphatases, OsPTP1/2, leading to the impaired activation of WRKY45 and a reduction in Magnaporthe oryzae resistance, even after BTH treatment. BTH induced a strong M. oryzae resistance in OsPTP1/2 knockdown rice, even under cold and high salinity, indicating that OsPTP1/2 is the node of SA-ABA signalling crosstalk and its down-regulation makes rice disease resistant, even under abiotic stresses. These results points to one of the directions to further improve crops by managing the tradeoffs between different stress responses of plants.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Disease Resistance / physiology*
  • Oryza
  • Phosphorylation
  • Plant Diseases
  • Plant Proteins / metabolism*
  • Signal Transduction / physiology*
  • Stress, Physiological / physiology*
  • Transcription Factors / metabolism
  • Tyrosine / metabolism

Substances

  • Plant Proteins
  • Transcription Factors
  • Tyrosine

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery, Japan (GMA0001, PMI0008 and GMO1006). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.