title: Perception of the Arabidopsis danger signal peptide 1 involves the pattern recognition receptor AtPEPR1 and its close homologue AtPEPR2.
abstract: Plasma membrane-borne pattern recognition receptors, which recognize microbe-associated molecular patterns and endogenous damage-associated molecular patterns, provide the first line of defense in innate immunity. In plants, leucine-rich repeat receptor kinases fulfill this role, as exemplified by FLS2 and EFR, the receptors for the microbe-associated molecular patterns flagellin and elongation factor Tu. Here we examined the perception of the damage-associated molecular pattern peptide 1 (AtPep1), an endogenous peptide of Arabidopsis identified earlier and shown to be perceived by the leucine-rich repeat protein kinase PEPR1. Using seedling growth inhibition, elicitation of an oxidative burst and induction of ethylene biosynthesis, we show that wild type plants and the pepr1 and pepr2 mutants, affected in PEPR1 and in its homologue PEPR2, are sensitive to AtPep1, but that the double mutant pepr1/pepr2 is completely insensitive. As a central body of our study, we provide electrophysiological evidence that at the level of the plasma membrane, AtPep1 triggers a receptor-dependent transient depolarization through activation of plasma membrane anion channels, and that this effect is absent in the double mutant pepr1/pepr2. The double mutant also fails to respond to AtPep2 and AtPep3, two distant homologues of AtPep1 on the basis of homology screening, implying that the PEPR1 and PEPR2 are responsible for their perception too. Our findings provide a basic framework to study the biological role of AtPep1-related danger signals and their cognate receptors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Plant Physiology and Biophysics, University of Wuerzburg, 97082 Wuerzburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Elzbieta
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Krol
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mentzel
authors.forename: Delphine
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chinchilla
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Boller
authors.forename: Georg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Felix
authors.forename: Birgit
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kemmerling
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Postel
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Arents
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jeworutzki
authors.forename: Khaled A S
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Al-Rasheid
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Becker
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hedrich
mesh_terms: D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D008564:Membrane Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D009154:Mutation; D051192:Receptors, Pattern Recognition / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D036226:Seedlings / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*; D015534:Trans-Activators / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins; D051192:Receptors, Pattern Recognition; D015534:Trans-Activators; C512590:At5g64900 protein, Arabidopsis