Skip to main content
SLU publication database (SLUpub)

Research article2014Peer reviewedOpen access

Light Influences How the Fungal Toxin Deoxynivalenol Affects Plant Cell Death and Defense Responses

Ansari, Khairul I.; Doyle, Siamsa; Kacprzyk, Joanna; Khan, Mojibur R.; Walter, Stephanie; Brennan, Josephine M.; Arunachalam, Chanemouga Soundharam; McCabe, Paul F.; Doohan, Fiona M.

Abstract

The Fusarium mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) can cause cell death in wheat (Triticum aestivum), but can also reduce the level of cell death caused by heat shock in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) cell cultures. We show that 10 mu g mL(-1) DON does not cause cell death in Arabidopsis cell cultures, and its ability to retard heat-induced cell death is light dependent. Under dark conditions, it actually promoted heat-induced cell death. Wheat cultivars differ in their ability to resist this toxin, and we investigated if the ability of wheat to mount defense responses was light dependent. We found no evidence that light affected the transcription of defense genes in DON-treated roots of seedlings of two wheat cultivars, namely cultivar CM82036 that is resistant to DON-induced bleaching of spikelet tissue and cultivar Remus that is not. However, DON treatment of roots led to genotype-dependent and light-enhanced defense transcript accumulation in coleoptiles. Wheat transcripts encoding a phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) gene (previously associated with Fusarium resistance), non-expressor of pathogenesis-related genes-1 (NPR1) and a class III plant peroxidase (POX) were DON-upregulated in coleoptiles of wheat cultivar CM82036 but not of cultivar Remus, and DON-upregulation of these transcripts in cultivar CM82036 was light enhanced. Light and genotype-dependent differences in the DON/DON derivative content of coleoptiles were also observed. These results, coupled with previous findings regarding the effect of DON on plants, show that light either directly or indirectly influences the plant defense responses to DON.

Keywords

Arabidopsis; beta-1,3-glucanase; cell death; Fusarium; light; non-expressor of pathogenesis-related genes-1 (NPR1); peroxidase; phenylalanine ammonia lyase; wheat

Published in

Toxins
2014, Volume: 6, number: 2, pages: 679-692
Publisher: MDPI AG

    Associated SLU-program

    SLU Plant Protection Network

    UKÄ Subject classification

    Genetics
    Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

    Publication identifier

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins6020679

    Permanent link to this page (URI)

    https://res.slu.se/id/publ/67872