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Posted by mugford on 25 Nov 2008 at 11:22 GMT
This study nicely shows that two aspects of plant wound responses: growth inhibition and defence response elicitation, are genetically separable. This has important implications for agronomy, raising the possibility of increasing the yields of crops which are hampered by herbivory.
RE: #Mugford
JohnTurnerLab replied to mugford on 25 Nov 2008 at 12:40 GMT
You raise an important point, that it is possible to separate wound- and jasmonate-induced growth inhibition from jasmonate-dependent defences. This is demonstrated by the jasmonate biosynthesis mutant opr3 which - as was shown previously by the Farmer and Browse laboratories - has intact defences but, as we show in our paper, its growth is not inhibited by wounding. However, in Arabidopsis this mutant is male sterile (as are most of the JA biosynthesis mutants). It is very interesting however that mutations in steps in the signal pathway - jin1/myc2 - also do not show jasmonate-induced growth inhibition, have defence against pathogens, and are male fertile: apparently these genes define a branch point downstream of that which regulates male fertility. I suspect that other regulatory points even closer to that which suppresses mitosis in wounded plants will be a good target to combine the agricultural benefits of not having suppressed growth, while retaining full innate immunity.