Plant Cell Reports

, Volume 34, Issue 11, pp 1975–1985 | Cite as

Cotton ACAULIS5 is involved in stem elongation and the plant defense response to Verticillium dahliae through thermospermine alteration

  • Huijuan Mo
  • Xingfen Wang
  • Yan Zhang
  • Jun Yang
  • Zhiying Ma
Original Article
First Online:
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:

Abstract

Key message

Overexpression of GhACL5 , an ACAULIS5 from cotton, in Arabidopsis increased plant height and T-Spm level. Silencing of GhACL5 in cotton exhibited a dwarf phenotype and reduced resistance to Verticillium dahliae.

Abstract

The Arabidopsis thaliana gene ACAULIS5 (ACL5), for which inactivation causes a defect in stem elongation, encodes thermospermine (T-Spm) synthase. However, limited information is available about improvement in plant height by the overexpression of ACL5 gene, and the biological functions of ACL5 genes in response to biotic stress. Here, this study reports that constitutive expression of the cotton ACL5 gene (GhACL5) in Arabidopsis thaliana significantly increased plant height and elevated the level of T-Spm. Silencing of that gene in cotton reduced the amount of T-Spm and led to a severe dwarf phenotype. Expression of GhACL5 was induced upon treatment with the fungal pathogen Verticillium dahliae and plant hormones salicylic acid, jasmonic acid, and ethylene in resistant cotton plants, but gene silencing in cotton enhanced their susceptibility to V. dahliae infection. Furthermore, T-Spm exposure effectively inhibited V. dahliae growth in vitro. In summary, GhACL5 expression is related to in planta levels of T-Spm and is involved in stem elongation and defense responses against V. dahliae.

Keywords

ACAULIS5 Thermospermine Stem elongation Cotton Arabidopsis thaliana Verticillium dahliae 

Abbreviations

ACL5

ACAULIS5

Arg

Arginine

ET

Ethephon solution

GA

Gibberellic acid

hpi

Hours post-inoculation

HPLC

High-performance liquid chromatography

JA

Jasmonic acid

Orn

Ornithine

PAs

Polyamines

Put

Putrescine

SA

Salicylic acid

SAM

S-Adenosylmethionine

SAMDC

S-Adenosylmethionine decarboxylase

Spd

Spermidine

Spm

Spermine

SPMS

Spm synthase

SSH

Suppression subtractive hybridization

TRV

Tobacco rattle virus

T-Spm

Thermospermine

V. dahliae

Verticillium dahliae

VIGS

Virus-induced gene silencing

WT

Wild-type

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Notes

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the 863 Project of China (No. 2013AA102601-5) and the Science & Technology Pillar Program of Hebei Province (14226308D). We are grateful to Priscilla Licht for critical reading of the manuscript. We thank Yule Liu of Tsinghua University for kindly offering the TRV vector, and Sun Yan-xiang of Langfang Normal University for kindly offering the pGN vector.

Compliance with ethical standards

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  • Huijuan Mo
    • 1
  • Xingfen Wang
    • 1
  • Yan Zhang
    • 1
  • Jun Yang
    • 1
  • Zhiying Ma
    • 1
  1. 1.North China Key Laboratory for Germplasm Resources of Education MinistryHebei Agricultural UniversityBaodingChina

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