We previously identified three Avr9/Cf-9 Rapidly Elicited (ACRE) genes essential for Cf-9- and Cf-4-dependent hypersensitive response (HR) production in Nicotiana benthamiana. Two of them encode putative E3 ubiquitin ligase components. This led us to investigate other ACRE genes associated with the ubiquitination pathway. ACRE74 encodes a U-box E3 ligase homolog, highly related to parsley (Petr...

PURPOSE Apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease (Ap endo) is a key DNA repair enzyme that cleaves DNA at cytotoxic abasic sites caused by alkylating agents and radiation. We have observed that human glioma cells deficient in Ap endo activity are hypersensitive to clinically used alkylators (Silber et al., Clin Cancer Res 2002;8:3008.). Here we examine the association of glioma Ap endo activity with ...

The copines are a newly identified class of calcium-dependent, phospholipid binding proteins that are present in a wide range of organisms, including Paramecium, plants, Caenorhabditis elegans, mouse, and human. However, the biological functions of the copines are unknown. Here, we describe a humidity-sensitive copine mutant in Arabidopsis. Under nonpermissive, low-humidity conditions, the cpn1...

Plants are constantly exposed to pathogens and environmental stresses. To minimize damage caused by these potentially harmful factors, plants respond by massive transcriptional reprogramming of various stress-related genes via major transcription factor families. One of the transcription factor families, WRKY, plays an important role in diverse stress response of plants and is often useful to g...

The tomato Cf-4 and Cf-9 genes confer resistance to infection by the biotrophic leaf mold pathogen Cladosporium. Their protein products induce a hypersensitive response (HR) upon recognition of the fungus-encoded Avr4 and Avr9 peptides. Cf-4 and Cf-9 share >91% sequence identity and are distinguished by sequences in their N-terminal domains A and B, their N-terminal leucine-rich repeats (LRRs) ...

SUMMARY Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) play pivotal roles in the signal transduction pathway of plant defence responses against pathogens. A search for MAPK-interacting proteins revealed an interaction between a Nicotiana benthamiana MAPK, SIPK (NbSIPK) and cytosolic Hsp90 (NbHsp90c-1) in yeast two-hybrid assay. To study the function of Hsp90 in disease resistance, we silenced NbHsp9...

Repair of DNA interstrand crosslinks (ICLs) predominantly involves the Fanconi anemia (FA) pathway and homologous recombination (HR). The HR repair system eliminates DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) that emerge during ICLs removal. The current study presents a novel cell line, CL‑V8B, representing a new complementation group of Chinese hamster cell mutants hypersensitive to DNA crosslinking fact...

Root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne spp.) are sedentary endoparasites with a broad host range which includes economically important crop species. Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp) is an important food and fodder legume grown in many regions where root-knot nematodes are a major problem in production fields. Several sources of resistance to root-knot nematode have been identified in cowpea, includ...

Here we reported a novel protein elicitor from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens NC6 induced systemic resistance (ISR) in tobacco. The purification was executed by ion-exchange chromatography, native-page extraction and HPLC, and the amino acid sequence was identified by mass spectrometry. This recombinant elicitor protein, expressed in Escherichia coli by an E1 expression vector, had good thermal sta...

Virus-induced gene silencing was used to assess the function of random Nicotiana benthamiana cDNAs in disease resistance. Out of 4992 cDNAs tested from a normalized library, there were 79 that suppressed a hypersensitive response (HR) associated with Pto-mediated resistance against Pseudomonas syringae. However, only six of these clones blocked the Pto-mediated suppression of P.syringae growth....