April
2012
, Volume
25
, Number
4
Pages
471
-
480
Authors
Gerit Bethke,1,2
Pascal Pecher,1
Lennart Eschen-Lippold,1
Kenichi Tsuda,2
Fumiaki Katagiri,2
Jane Glazebrook,2
Dierk Scheel,1 and
Justin Lee1
Affiliations
1Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry, Stress and Developmental Biology, Weinberg 3, D-06120 Halle, Germany; and 2Department of Plant Biology, Microbial and Plant Genomics Institute, University of Minnesota, 1500 Gortner Avenue, St. Paul 55108, U.S.A.
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Accepted 16 December 2011.
Abstract
Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) mediate cellular signal transduction during stress responses, as well as diverse growth and developmental processes in eukaryotes. Pathogen infection or treatments with conserved pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) such as the bacterial flagellin-derived flg22 peptide are known to activate three Arabidopsis thaliana MAPK: MPK3, MPK4, and MPK6. Several stresses, including flg22 treatment, are known to increase MPK11 expression but activation of MPK11 has not been shown. Here, we show that MPK11 activity can, indeed, be increased through flg22 elicitation. A small-scale microarray for profiling defense-related genes revealed that cinnamyl alcohol dehyrogenase 5 requires MPK11 for full flg22-induced expression. An mpk11 mutant showed increased flg22-mediated growth inhibition but no altered susceptibility to Pseudomonas syringae, Botrytis cinerea, or Alternaria brassicicola. In mpk3, mpk6, or mpk4 backgrounds, MPK11 is required for embryo or seed development or general viability. Although this developmental deficiency in double mutants and the lack of or only subtle mpk11 phenotypes suggest functional MAPK redundancies, comparison with the paralogous MPK4 reveals distinct functions. Taken together, future investigations of MAPK roles in stress signaling should include MPK11 as a fourth PAMP-activated MAPK.
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© 2012 The American Phytopathological Society