title: Epigenetic variation in Arabidopsis disease resistance.
abstract: Plant pathogen resistance is mediated by a large repertoire of resistance (R) genes, which are often clustered in the genome and show a high degree of genetic variation. Here, we show that an Arabidopsis thaliana R-gene cluster is also subject to epigenetic variation. We describe a heritable but metastable epigenetic variant bal that overexpresses the R-like gene At4g16890 from a gene cluster on Chromosome 4. The bal variant and Arabidopsis transgenics overexpressing the At4g16890 gene are dwarfed and constitutively activate the salicylic acid (SA)-dependent defense response pathway. Overexpression of a related R-like gene also occurs in the ssi1 (suppressor of SA insensitivity 1) background, suggesting that ssi1 is mechanistically related to bal.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA.
authors.forename: Trevor L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Stokes
authors.forename: Barbara N
authors.initials: BN
authors.lastname: Kunkel
authors.forename: Eric J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Richards
mesh_terms: D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D001483:Base Sequence; D002875:Chromosomes; D017931:DNA Primers; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005810:Multigene Family; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D020156:Salicylic Acid / Q000378:metabolism; D015398:Signal Transduction
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D020156:Salicylic Acid