Functional analysis of a pathogenesis-related thaumatin-like protein gene TaLr35PR5 from wheat induced by leaf rust fungus

Jiarui Zhang, Fei Wang, Fang Liang, Yanjun Zhang, Lisong Ma*, Haiyan Wang, Daqun Liu

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    59 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Background: Plants have evolved multifaceted defence mechanisms to resist pathogen infection. Production of the pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins in response to pathogen attack has been implicated in plant disease resistance specialized in systemic-acquired resistance (SAR). Our earlier studies have reported that a full length TaLr35PR5 gene, encoding a protein exhibiting amino acid and structural similarity to a sweet protein thaumatin, was isolated from wheat near-isogenic line TcLr35. The present study aims to understand the function of TaLr35PR5 gene in Lr35-mediated adult resistance to Puccinia triticina. Results: We determined that the TaLr35PR5 protein contained a functional secretion peptide by utilizing the yeast signal sequence trap system. Using a heterologous expression assay on onion epidermal cells we found that TaLr35PR5 protein was secreted into the apoplast of onion cell. Expression of TaLr35PR5 was significantly reduced in BSMV-induced gene silenced wheat plants, and pathology test on these silenced plants revealed that Lr35-mediated resistance phenotype was obviously altered, indicating that Lr35-mediated resistance was compromised. Conclusions: All these findings strongly suggest that TaLr35PR5 is involved in Lr35-mediated adult wheat defense in response to leaf rust attack.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number76
    JournalBMC Plant Biology
    Volume18
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 4 May 2018

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