Maize ZmRACK1 Is Involved in the Plant Response to Fungal Phytopathogens

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Baosheng Wang¹  Jingjuan Yu¹  Dengyun Zhu¹  Yujie Chang¹ 

[1] State Key Laboratory of Agribiotechnology, College of Biological Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China; E-Mails:

关键词: Zea mays;    RACK1;    disease resistance;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms15069343

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The receptor for activated C kinase 1 (RACK1) belongs to a protein subfamily containing a tryptophan-aspartic acid-domain (WD) repeat structure. Compelling evidence indicates that RACK1 can interact with many signal molecules and affect different signal transduction pathways. In this study, we cloned a maize RACK1 gene (ZmRACK1) by RT-PCR. The amino acid sequence of ZmRACK1 had seven WD repeats in which there were typical GH (glycine-histidine) and WD dipeptides. Comparison with OsRACK1 from rice revealed 89% identity at the amino acid level. Expression pattern analysis by RT-PCR showed that ZmRACK1 was expressed in all analyzed tissues of maize and that its transcription in leaves was induced by abscisic acid and jasmonate at a high concentration. Overexpression of ZmRACK1 in maize led to a reduction in symptoms caused by Exserohilum turcicum (Pass.) on maize leaves. The expression levels of the pathogenesis-related protein genes, PR-1 and PR-5, increased 2.5–3 times in transgenic maize, and reactive oxygen species production was more active than in the wild-type. Yeast two-hybrid assays showed that ZmRACK1 could interact with RAC1, RAR1 and SGT1. This study and previous work leads us to believe that ZmRACK1 may form a complex with regulators of plant disease resistance to coordinate maize reactions to pathogens.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.