The Brassicaceae-specific EWR1 gene provides resistance to vascular wilt pathogens

Koste A Yadeta; Dirk-Jan Valkenburg; Mathieu Hanemian; Yves Marco; Bart P H J Thomma

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0088230

The Brassicaceae-specific EWR1 gene provides resistance to vascular wilt pathogens

PLoS One. 2014 Feb 5;9(2):e88230. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0088230. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Koste A Yadeta¹, Dirk-Jan Valkenburg¹, Mathieu Hanemian², Yves Marco², Bart P H J Thomma¹

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Phytopathology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
² Laboratoire des Interactions Plantes Microorganismes, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Castanet-Tolosan, France.

Abstract

Soil-borne vascular wilt diseases caused by Verticillium spp. are among the most destructive diseases worldwide in a wide range of plant species. The most effective means of controlling Verticillium wilt diseases is the use of genetic resistance. We have previously reported the identification of four activation-tagged Arabidopsis mutants which showed enhanced resistance to Verticillium wilt. Among these, one mutant also showed enhanced resistance to Ralstonia solanacearum, a bacterial vascular wilt pathogen. Cloning of the activation tag revealed an insertion upstream of gene At3g13437, which we designated as EWR1 (for Enhancer of vascular Wilt Resistance 1) that encodes a putatively secreted protein of unknown function. The search for homologs of Arabidopsis EWR1 (AtEWR1) in public databases only identified homologs within the Brassicaceae family. We subsequently cloned the EWR1 homolog from Brassica oleracea (BoEWR1) and show that over-expression in Arabidopsis results in V. dahliae resistance. Moreover, over-expression of AtEWR1 and BoEWR1 in N. benthamiana, a member of the Solanaceae family, results in V. dahliae resistance, suggesting that EWR1 homologs can be used to engineer Verticillium wilt resistance in non-Brassicaceae crops as well.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Arabidopsis / genetics
Brassicaceae / genetics*
Brassicaceae / microbiology*
Disease Resistance
Genes, Plant
Plant Diseases / genetics*
Plant Diseases / microbiology
Plants, Genetically Modified / genetics
Verticillium / physiology*

Grants and funding

This research is supported by the Dutch Technology Foundation STW, which is the applied science division of NWO, and the Technology Programme of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. BPHJT is supported by a Vici grant of the Research Council for Earth and Life sciences (ALW) of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). We acknowledge the Van Gogh programme for supporting the collaboration with CNRS-INRA in Toulouse, France. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.