title: Antagonistic plant defense system regulated by phytohormones assists interactions among vector insect, thrips and a tospovirus.
abstract: The western flower thrips (Frankliniella occidentalis) is a polyphagous herbivore that causes serious damage to many agricultural plants. In addition to causing feeding damage, it is also a vector insect that transmits tospoviruses such as Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV). We previously reported that thrips feeding on plants induces a jasmonate (JA)-regulated plant defense, which negatively affects both the performance and preference (i.e. host plant attractiveness) of the thrips. The antagonistic interaction between a JA-regulated plant defense and a salicylic acid (SA)-regulated plant defense is well known. Here we report that TSWV infection allows thrips to feed heavily and multiply on Arabidopsis plants. TSWV infection elevated SA contents and induced SA-regulated gene expression in the plants. On the other hand, TSWV infection decreased the level of JA-regulated gene expression induced by thrips feeding. Importantly, we also demonstrated that thrips significantly preferred TSWV-infected plants to uninfected plants. In JA-insensitive coi1-1 mutants, however, thrips did not show a preference for TSWV-infected plants. In addition, SA application to wild-type plants increased their attractiveness to thrips. Our results suggest the following mechanism: TSWV infection suppresses the anti-herbivore response in plants and attracts its vector, thrips, to virus-infected plants by exploiting the antagonistic SA-JA plant defense systems.
authors.affiliation: Experimental Plant Division, RIKEN BioResource Center, Tsukuba, Japan. ahiroshi@rtc.riken.jp
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Abe
authors.forename: Yasuhiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tomitaka
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shimoda
authors.forename: Shigemi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Seo
authors.forename: Tamito
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sakurai
authors.forename: Soichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kugimiya
authors.forename: Shinya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tsuda
authors.forename: Masatomo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology* / Q000469:parasitology* / Q000821:virology; D003517:Cyclopentanes / Q000378:metabolism*; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D006790:Host-Parasite Interactions; D007303:Insect Vectors / Q000502:physiology*; D054883:Oxylipins / Q000378:metabolism*; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000821:virology; D020156:Salicylic Acid / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors*; D061149:Thysanoptera / Q000502:physiology*; D017865:Tospovirus / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D003517:Cyclopentanes; D054883:Oxylipins; C011006:jasmonic acid; D020156:Salicylic Acid