Abstract
Parasitic plants of the genus Cuscuta penetrate shoots of host plants with haustoria and build a connection to the host vasculature to exhaust water, solutes and carbohydrates. Such infections usually stay unrecognized by the host and lead to harmful host plant damage. Here, we show a molecular mechanism of how plants can sense parasitic Cuscuta. We isolated an 11 kDa protein of the parasite cell wall and identified it as a glycine-rich protein (GRP). This GRP, as well as its minimal peptide epitope Crip21, serve as a pathogen-associated molecular pattern and specifically bind and activate a membrane-bound immune receptor of tomato, the Cuscuta Receptor 1 (CuRe1), leading to defense responses in resistant hosts. These findings provide the initial steps to understand the resistance mechanisms against parasitic plants and further offer great potential for protecting crops by engineering resistance against parasitic plants.
Highlights
Parasitic plants of the genus Cuscuta penetrate shoots of host plants with haustoria and build a connection to the host vasculature to exhaust water, solutes and carbohydrates
We reported the tomato cell surface receptor “Cuscuta receptor 1” (CuRe1) as a critical component for the detection of C. reflexa due to a hypothesized Cuscuta factor or pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) that can be extracted from the parasitic plant and triggers the defense response in a Cuscuta Receptor 1 (CuRe1)-dependent manner
Since we knew that the Cuscuta factor originates from the cell wall, we focused on extracts prepared from the parasite cell wall and tested them for bioactivity in the ethylene bioassay induced via CuRe1 (Fig. 1d)
Summary
Parasitic plants of the genus Cuscuta penetrate shoots of host plants with haustoria and build a connection to the host vasculature to exhaust water, solutes and carbohydrates. We reported the tomato cell surface receptor “Cuscuta receptor 1” (CuRe1) as a critical component for the detection of C. reflexa due to a hypothesized Cuscuta factor or pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) that can be extracted from the parasitic plant and triggers the defense response in a CuRe1-dependent manner. When purifying the extracts by cation exchange or reversed phase chromatography, the Cuscuta factor activity detectable by the CuRe1 receptor eluted in several peaks, indicating presence of activity in structurally different forms (Supplementary Fig. 1)[15].
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