OsWRKY65 enhances immunity against fungal and bacterial pathogens in rice
Seungmin Son,
Giha Song,
Suhyeon Nam,
Jinjeong Lee,
Duk-Ju Hwang,
Eun-Jung Suh,
Sang Ryeol Park
Affiliations
Seungmin Son
National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Jeonju 54874, Republic of Korea; Corresponding authors.
Giha Song
National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Jeonju 54874, Republic of Korea; Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Bioresources, Plant Genomics and Breeding Institute, Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
Suhyeon Nam
National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Jeonju 54874, Republic of Korea; Department of Crop Science and Biotechnology, Jeonbuk National University, Jeonju 54896, Republic of Korea
Jinjeong Lee
National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Jeonju 54874, Republic of Korea
Duk-Ju Hwang
National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Jeonju 54874, Republic of Korea
Eun-Jung Suh
National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Jeonju 54874, Republic of Korea
Sang Ryeol Park
National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration, Jeonju 54874, Republic of Korea; Corresponding authors.
Diverse bacterial and fungal pathogens attack plants, causing biotic stress and severe yield losses globally. These losses are expected to become more serious as climate change improves conditions for many pathogens. Therefore, identifying genes conferring broad-spectrum disease resistance and elucidating their underlying mechanisms provides important resources for plant breeding. WRKY transcription factors affect plant growth and stress responses. However, the functions of many WRKY proteins remain to be elucidated. Here, we demonstrated the role of rice (Oryza sativa) WRKY group III transcription factor OsWRKY65 in immunity. OsWRKY65 localized to the nucleus and acted as transcriptional repressor. Genetic and molecular functional analyses showed that OsWRKY65 increases resistance to the fungal pathogen Fusarium fujikuroi through downregulation of GA signaling and upregulation of JA signaling. Moreover, OsWRKY65 modulated the expression of the key genes that confer susceptibility or resistance to Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae to enhance immunity against the pathogen. In particular, OsWRKY65 directly bound to the promoter region of OsSWEET13 and repressed its expression. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that the OsWRKY65 enhances resistance to fungal and bacterial pathogens in rice.
