Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
5.4
4.5
Journals
Plants
Special Issues
Molecular Biology of Plant Defense Responses in Maize
share announcement

Molecular Biology of Plant Defense Responses in Maize

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Protection and Biotic Interactions".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2023) | Viewed by 5925

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Charles T. Hunter

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Chemistry Research Unit, Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology, U.S. Department of Agriculture—Agricultural Research Service, Gainesville, FL 32608, USA
Interests: plant defense; defense hormone signaling; carotenoids; plant metabolism; plant development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Maize remains the most widely-grown and productive crop on the planet. Despite gains in pest management, biotic stresses continue to have major impacts on yield, amounting to billions of dollars per year in losses in the United States alone. Improving the basic understanding of the mechanisms, biochemical pathways, and genetics of how maize defends itself from pathogens and insects can facilitate the development of improved cultivars and pest management strategies. Topics of interest for this Special Issue of Plants include: molecular biology and biochemistry of defense chemistry, the regulation of defense signaling pathways, characterization of genes and gene families involved in defense responses, and genomic/transcriptomic/metabolomic analyses of pathogen or insect defense in maize. Original research and reviews are welcome.

Dr. Charles T. Hunter
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • defense chemistry
  • defense signaling
  • hormones
  • herbivory
  • secondary metabolism
  • insect
  • pest
  • pathogen
  • disease

Published Papers (3 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

19 pages, 4708 KiB  
Article
Cytokinin Promotes Jasmonic Acid Accumulation in the Control of Maize Leaf Growth
by Aimee N. Uyehara, Angel R. Del Valle-Echevarria, Charles T. Hunter, Hilde Nelissen, Kirin Demuynck, James F. Cahill, Zachary Gorman, Georg Jander and Michael G. Muszynski
Plants 2023, 12(16), 3014; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12163014 - 21 Aug 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1539
Abstract
Plant organ growth results from the combined activity of cell division and cell expansion. The co-ordination of these two processes depends on the interplay between multiple hormones that determine the final organ size. Using the semidominant Hairy Sheath Frayed1 (Hsf1) maize [...] Read more.
Plant organ growth results from the combined activity of cell division and cell expansion. The co-ordination of these two processes depends on the interplay between multiple hormones that determine the final organ size. Using the semidominant Hairy Sheath Frayed1 (Hsf1) maize mutant that hypersignals the perception of cytokinin (CK), we show that CK can reduce leaf size and growth rate by decreasing cell division. Linked to CK hypersignaling, the Hsf1 mutant has an increased jasmonic acid (JA) content, a hormone that can inhibit cell division. The treatment of wild-type seedlings with exogenous JA reduces maize leaf size and growth rate, while JA-deficient maize mutants have increased leaf size and growth rate. Expression analysis revealed the increased transcript accumulation of several JA pathway genes in the Hsf1 leaf growth zone. A transient treatment of growing wild-type maize shoots with exogenous CK also induced the expression of JA biosynthetic genes, although this effect was blocked by the co-treatment with cycloheximide. Together, our results suggest that CK can promote JA accumulation, possibly through the increased expression of specific JA pathway genes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Molecular Biology of Plant Defense Responses in Maize)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

23 pages, 2678 KiB  
Article
Maize Terpene Synthase 8 (ZmTPS8) Contributes to a Complex Blend of Fungal-Elicited Antibiotics
by Evan V. Saldivar, Yezhang Ding, Elly Poretsky, Skylar Bird, Anna K. Block, Alisa Huffaker and Eric A. Schmelz
Plants 2023, 12(5), 1111; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12051111 - 01 Mar 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2226
Abstract
In maize (Zea mays), fungal-elicited immune responses include the accumulation of terpene synthase (TPS) and cytochrome P450 monooxygenases (CYP) enzymes resulting in complex antibiotic arrays of sesquiterpenoids and diterpenoids, including α/β-selinene derivatives, zealexins, kauralexins and dolabralexins. To uncover additional antibiotic families, [...] Read more.
In maize (Zea mays), fungal-elicited immune responses include the accumulation of terpene synthase (TPS) and cytochrome P450 monooxygenases (CYP) enzymes resulting in complex antibiotic arrays of sesquiterpenoids and diterpenoids, including α/β-selinene derivatives, zealexins, kauralexins and dolabralexins. To uncover additional antibiotic families, we conducted metabolic profiling of elicited stem tissues in mapping populations, which included B73 × M162W recombinant inbred lines and the Goodman diversity panel. Five candidate sesquiterpenoids associated with a chromosome 1 locus spanning the location of ZmTPS27 and ZmTPS8. Heterologous enzyme co-expression studies of ZmTPS27 in Nicotiana benthamiana resulted in geraniol production while ZmTPS8 yielded α-copaene, δ-cadinene and sesquiterpene alcohols consistent with epi-cubebol, cubebol, copan-3-ol and copaborneol matching the association mapping efforts. ZmTPS8 is an established multiproduct α-copaene synthase; however, ZmTPS8-derived sesquiterpene alcohols are rarely encountered in maize tissues. A genome wide association study further linked an unknown sesquiterpene acid to ZmTPS8 and combined ZmTPS8-ZmCYP71Z19 heterologous enzyme co-expression studies yielded the same product. To consider defensive roles for ZmTPS8, in vitro bioassays with cubebol demonstrated significant antifungal activity against both Fusarium graminearum and Aspergillus parasiticus. As a genetically variable biochemical trait, ZmTPS8 contributes to the cocktail of terpenoid antibiotics present following complex interactions between wounding and fungal elicitation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Molecular Biology of Plant Defense Responses in Maize)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

9 pages, 1420 KiB  
Communication
Production of the Green Leaf Volatile (Z)-3-Hexenal by a Zea mays Hydroperoxide Lyase
by Jessica P. Yactayo-Chang, Charles T. Hunter, Hans T. Alborn, Shawn A. Christensen and Anna K. Block
Plants 2022, 11(17), 2201; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11172201 - 25 Aug 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1648
Abstract
Plant-produced volatile compounds play important roles in plant signaling and in the communication of plants with other organisms. Many plants emit green leaf volatiles (GLVs) in response to damage or attack, which serve to warn neighboring plants or attract predatory or parasitic insects [...] Read more.
Plant-produced volatile compounds play important roles in plant signaling and in the communication of plants with other organisms. Many plants emit green leaf volatiles (GLVs) in response to damage or attack, which serve to warn neighboring plants or attract predatory or parasitic insects to help defend against insect pests. GLVs include aldehydes, esters, and alcohols of 6-carbon compounds that are released rapidly following wounding. One GLV produced by maize (Zea mays) is the volatile (Z)-3-hexenal; this volatile is produced from the cleavage of (9Z,11E,15Z)-octadecatrienoic acid by hydroperoxide lyases (HPLs) of the cytochrome P450 CYP74B family. The specific HPL in maize involved in (Z)-3-hexenal production had not been determined. In this study, we used phylogenetics with known HPLs from other species to identify a candidate HPL from maize (ZmHPL). To test the ability of the putative HPL to produce (Z)-3-hexenal, we constitutively expressed the gene in Arabidopsis thaliana ecotype Columbia-0 that contains a natural loss-of-function mutant in AtHPL and examined the transgenic plants for restored (Z)-3-hexenal production. Volatile analysis of leaves from these transgenic plants showed that they did produce (Z)-3-hexenal, confirming that ZmHPL can produce (Z)-3-hexenal in vivo. Furthermore, we used gene expression analysis to show that expression of ZmHPL is induced in maize in response to both wounding and the insect pests Spodoptera frugiperda and Spodoptera exigua. Our study demonstrates that ZmHPL can produce GLVs and highlights its likely role in (Z)-3-hexenal production in response to mechanical damage and herbivory in maize. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Molecular Biology of Plant Defense Responses in Maize)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-3
Back to TopTop