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Volatile Indole Produced by Rhizobacterium Proteus vulgaris JBLS202 Stimulates Growth of Arabidopsis thaliana Through Auxin, Cytokinin, and Brassinosteroid Pathways

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Abstract

Volatile compounds produced by bacteria play an important role in plant and bacteria interactions. Volatiles from the rhizobacterium Proteus vulgaris JBLS202 or synthetic indole increased the fresh weight of Arabidopsis thaliana Col-0 by 74.9–80.3 %, and 48.0–56.3 %, respectively. However, exposure to volatiles from JBLS202 or indole was unable to promote growth in the mutant lines of A. thaliana defective in auxin transport (eir1), cytokinin (cre1), and brassinosteroid metabolism (cbb1), whereas growth was significantly stimulated in the ethylene- (etr1) and gibberellin-insensitive (gai 1) mutants. In addition, Arabidopsis Col-0 treated with auxin, and brassinosteroid biosynthesis inhibitors was considerably arrested in growth-promoting performance by the volatiles. Moreover, exposure of Col-0 seedlings to JBLS202 or indole for 14 days resulted in overexpression of small auxin up RNA, histidine kinase1, and brassinosteroid biosynthetic cytochrome P450 genes. Overall, the results indicate that the indole emitted by JBLS202 stimulates the growth of A. thaliana through an interplay between the auxin, cytokinin, and brassinosteroid pathways. This is the first report on how bacterial indole influences the plant hormone signaling pathways.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the two anonymous referees for their constructive comments and corrections. We gratefully acknowledge a Grant from the Basic Research Laboratory Program (2011-0020202) and Basic Science Research program (2014R1A1A4A01003957) through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

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  1. Division of Biotechnology, Chonbuk National University, 79 Gobong-ro, Iksan-si, Jeollabuk-do, 570-752, Republic of Korea

    Dipto Bhattacharyya, Mallikarjuna Garladinne & Yong Hoon Lee

  2. Advanced Institute of Environment and Bioscience, and Plant Medical Research Center, Chonbuk National University, Iksan, Republic of Korea

    Yong Hoon Lee

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  1. Dipto Bhattacharyya
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  2. Mallikarjuna Garladinne
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Correspondence to Yong Hoon Lee.

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Bhattacharyya, D., Garladinne, M. & Lee, Y.H. Volatile Indole Produced by Rhizobacterium Proteus vulgaris JBLS202 Stimulates Growth of Arabidopsis thaliana Through Auxin, Cytokinin, and Brassinosteroid Pathways. J Plant Growth Regul 34, 158–168 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-014-9453-x

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