Wang Zhicheng, Lv Ruili, Hong Yuhui, Su Chenglin, Wang Zhengjie, Zhu Jiaxuan, Yang Ruirui, Wang Ruiming, Li Yan, Meng Jun, Luan Yushi
MOE Key Laboratory of Bio-Intelligent Manufacturing, School of Bioengineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China.
College of Criminal Science and Technology, Criminal Investigation Police University of China, Shenyang, 110854, China.
Plant J. 2025 Feb;121(4):e70007. doi: 10.1111/tpj.70007.
Tomato is a horticultural crop of global significance. However, the pathogen Phytophthora infestans causing the late blight disease imposes a severe threat to tomato production and quality. Many transcription factors (TFs) are known to be involved in responses to plant pathogens, however, the key TFs in tomato resistant to P. infestans remain to be explored. Here, we identified six TFs related to tomato responses to P. infestans infection. In particular, we found overexpression of SlKUA1 could significantly improve tomato resistance to P. infestans; moreover, reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation was significantly increased in OE-SlKUA1 compared with WT after P. infestans infection along with higher expression of SlRBOHD. Surprisingly, we found that SlKUA1 could not bind to the promoter of SlRBOHD. Further experiments revealed that SlKUA1 inhibited the expression of SlPrx1 by binding to its promoter region, thereby decreasing POD enzyme abundance and causing compromised ROS scavenge. Meanwhile, we identified that SlKUA1 also binds to the promoter region of two plant immune-related genes, SlMAPK7 and SlRLP4, promoting their expression and enhancing tomato disease resistance. Together, our results have unraveled that SlKUA1 can boost tomato resistance against P. infestans through quantitatively regulating ROS accumulation and related immune gene expression, thus, providing promising new targets for breeding late blight resistance tomatoes.
番茄是一种具有全球重要性的园艺作物。然而，引起晚疫病的致病疫霉对番茄的产量和品质构成了严重威胁。已知许多转录因子（TFs）参与植物对病原体的反应，然而，番茄中抗致病疫霉的关键转录因子仍有待探索。在这里，我们鉴定了六个与番茄对致病疫霉感染反应相关的转录因子。特别地，我们发现SlKUA1的过表达可以显著提高番茄对致病疫霉的抗性；此外，与野生型相比，致病疫霉感染后OE-SlKUA1中的活性氧（ROS）积累显著增加，同时SlRBOHD的表达也更高。令人惊讶的是，我们发现SlKUA1不能与SlRBOHD的启动子结合。进一步的实验表明，SlKUA1通过与其启动子区域结合来抑制SlPrx1的表达，从而降低过氧化物酶（POD）的丰度并导致ROS清除能力受损。同时，我们鉴定出SlKUA1还与两个植物免疫相关基因SlMAPK7和SlRLP4的启动子区域结合，促进它们的表达并增强番茄的抗病性。总之，我们的结果揭示了SlKUA1可以通过定量调节ROS积累和相关免疫基因表达来增强番茄对致病疫霉的抗性，因此，为培育抗晚疫病番茄提供了有前景的新靶点。
