Plant Lipids in Biotic and Abiotic Stress

Numerous cuticle lipid mutants arising from our screens show severe alterations in pathogen and other stress responses. Our recent findings indicate that plant cuticle is not solely a physical barrier, but instead, that oxygenated and very long chain fatty acids generated by mutations in cuticle metabolic pathways may be serving as signals in plant stress response.

Key Publications:

• Saladié, M., Matas, A.J., Isaacson, T., Goodwin. S.M., Niklas, K.J., Ren, X., Labavitch, J.M., Shackel, K.R., Fernie, A., Lytovchenko, A., O'Neill, M.A., Watkins, C.B., Jenks, M.A., and Rose, J.K.C. 2007. Re-evaluating the key factors that contribute to tomato fruit softening. Plant Physiology 144: 1012-1028. Low water loss fruit of tomato line DFD showed ~35% more cutin monomers and high resistance to Botrytis.

• Goodwin, S.M., Edwards, C., Karl V. Wood, and Jenks, M.A. 2007. Leaf cutin monomers, cuticular waxes, and blackspot resistance in rose. HortScience 42:1631-1635. Alkane and ester relative amounts were directly and inversely correlated, respectively, with resistance in rose to Diplocarpon rosae (blackspot).

• Chen, X., Goodwin, M., Liu X., Bressan, R.A. Jenks, M.A. 2005. Mutation of the RESURRECTION1 locus of Arabidopsis reveals an association of cuticular wax with embryo development.. Plant Physiology 139:909-919. Soon to be published results show that rst1 is highly susceptible to Erysiphe, but resistant to Botrytis and Alternaria, associated with suppressed PR1 and PR2 gene expression and SA synthesis, and elevated PDF1.2 expression.

• Maalekuu, K., Elkind, Y., Tuvia-Alkalai, Fallik, E., S., Shalom, Y., Jenks, M.A., and Goodwin, S.M. 2005. Characterization of physiological and biochemical factors associated with postharvest water loss in ripe pepper fruits during storage. Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science 130:735-741. Wax amount, cell membrane ion leakage, and lipoxygenase activity was directly correlated with pepper fruit transpiration, indicating lipid modification association with fruit water loss.

• Xiao, F., Goodwin, S.M., Xiao, Y., Sun, Z., Baker, D., Tang, X., Jenks, M.A., and Zhou, J.M. 2004. Arabidopsis CYP86A2 negatively regulates Pseudomonas syringae type III genes and is required for cuticle development. EMBO Journal 23:2903-2913. The att1 mutant is susceptible to Pseudomonas, and virilence genes are activated in Pseudomonas inflitrated into att1.

• Rashotte, A.M., Jenks, M.A., Ross, A.S., and Feldmann, K.A. 2004. Novel eceriferum mutants in Arabidopsis thaliana. Planta 219:5-13.

• Inan, G., Zhang, H., Li, P., Wang, Z., Cao, Z., Zhang, C., Quist, T.M., Goodwin, S.M., Zhu, J., Shi, H., Damsz, B., Charbaji, T., Gong, Q., Ma, S., Fredricksen, M., Galbraith, D.W., Jenks, M.A., Rhodes, D., Hasegawa, P.M., Bohnert, H.J., Joly, R.J., Bressan, R.A., and Zhu, J.K. 2004. Salt cress: A halophyte and cryophyte Arabidopsis relative model system and its applicability to molecular genetic analysis of growth and development of extremophiles. Plant Physiology 135:1718-1737.

• Chen, X., Goodwin, M., Boroff, V.L., Liu X, and Jenks, M.A. 2003. Cloning and characterization of the WAX2 gene of Arabidopsis involved in cuticle membrane and wax production. Plant Cell 15:1170-1185. The first cuticle membrane mutant in Arabidopsis showed a highly disorganized cutin matrix, a very low wax amount, very high transpiration, and drought susceptibility.

• Goodwin, M., Kolossova, N., Blakeslee, J., Wood, K.V., Dudareva, N. and Jenks, M.A. 2002. Characterization of petal cuticle and volatile emission in Antirrhinum majus L. Physiologia Plantarum 117:435-443. With highly branched wax constituents, Antirrhinum flower petal cuticles are highly permeable, likely for the emission of the floral volatile methylbenzoate for pollinator attraction.

• Ristic, Z., and Jenks, M.A. 2002. Leaf cuticle and water loss in maize lines differing in dehydration avoidance. Journal of Plant Physiology 159:645-651. Leaf cutin amounts were inversely correlated with transpiration rates, whereas wax amounts were directly correlated.

• Jenks, M.A., Anderson, L., Teusink, R., and Williams, M. 2001. Leaf cuticular waxes of potted rose cultivars as effected by plant development, drought, and paclobutrazol treatments. Physiologia Plantarum 112:62-70. Repeated mild water deficit treatments caused a 12% increase in leaf wax amounts which were associated with reduced transpiration rates from whole plants.

• Bohnert HJ, Ayoubi P, Borchert C, Bressan RA, Burnap RL, Cushman JC, Cushman MA, Deyholos M, Galbraith DW, Hasegawa PM, Jenks MA, Kawasaki S, Koiwa H, Kore-eda S, Lee BH, Michalowski CB, Misawa E, Nomura M, Ozturk N, Postier B, Prade R, Song CP, Tanaka Y, Wang H, Zhu JK 2001. A genomics approach towards salt stress tolerance. Plant Physiology & Biochemistry 39:1-17.

• Jenks, M.A., Eigenbrode, S.D, Tuttle, H.A. and Feldmann, K.A. 1995. Leaf epicuticular waxes on the eceriferum mutants of Arabidopsis. Plant Physiology 108:369-377.

• Jenks, M.A., Rashotte, A.M., Tuttle, H.A. and Feldmann, K.A. 1996. Mutants in Arabidopsis thaliana altered in epicuticular wax and leaf morphology. Plant Physiology 110:377-385.

• Jenks, M.A., Joly, R.A., Rich, P.J., Peters, P.J, Axtell, J.D. and Ashworth, E.N. 1994. Chemically-induced cuticle mutation affecting epidermal conductance to water vapor and disease susceptibility in Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench. Plant Physiology 105:1239-1245. The bm2 cuticle membrane mutant is highly susceptible to Exserohilum turcicum (leaf blight).

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