Emerging Roles of Agrobacterial Plant-Transforming Oncogenes in Plant Defense Reactions

Abstract

For recent years, engineering plant metabolic pathways by using rol genes looks promising in several aspects. New directions of rol‐gene studies are highlighted in this work underlying the unique regulatory properties of the genes. It is known that following agrobacterial infection, the Agrobacterium rhizogenes rolA, rolB and rolC genes are transferred to plant genome, causing tumor formation and hairy root disease. In this report, we show mat these oncogenes are also involved in regulation of plant defense reactions, including the production of secondary metabolites. Situations occur where the rol genes perform their own critical function to regulate secondary metabolism by bypassing upstream plant control mechanisms and directing defense reactions via a “short cut.” The rolC gene expressed in transformed plant cells is efficient in establishing an enhanced resistance of host cells to salt and temperature stresses. The emerging complexity of the rol‐gene triggered effects and the involvement of signals generated by these genes in basic processes of cell biology such as calcium and ROS signaling indicate that the plant oncogenes, like some animal protooncogenes, use sophisticated strategies to affect cell growth and differentiation. The data raise the intriguing possibility that some components of plant and animal oncogene signaling pathways share common features.