Plant Elicitor Peptides: conserved mediators of immunity to pathogens and insects in higher plants
A. HUFFAKER (1), P. Weckwerth (2), K. Dressano (2), Z. Shen (2) (1) UC San Diego, U.S.A.; (2) UC San Diego, U.S.A.

Plant Elicitor Peptides (Peps) are immunoregulatory peptide signals encoded by multi-gene families ubiquitous throughout angiosperm and gymnosperm plants. While some Peps regulate anti-pathogen defense responses, others are mediators of plant defense programs against herbivores. Peps interact with PEPR receptors complexed with the co-receptor BAK1 to initiate signal transduction cascades that share some components with MAMP signaling. While components of the PEPR receptor complex have been well defined, much of the downstream pathway has yet to be defined. To elucidate novel proteins that contribute to Pep-regulated immune responses, we screened for proteins that rapidly changed in phosphorylation state upon Pep treatment in both maize and Arabidopsis. This phosphoproteomic screen revealed some proteins already implicated in plant innate immunity, but yielded predominantly proteins that have not yet been associated with this response. Characterization of RNA and DNA binding proteins that change in phosphorylation state upon Pep elicitation has uncovered several new candidate positive and negative regulators of Pep and PAMP-mediated immune responses in both species maize and Arabidopsis. Together these analyses allow comparison of monocot and dicot signaling cascades contributing to both anti-pathogen and anti-herbivore defense responses.

Abstract Number: P4-3
Session Type: Plenary