L-Glutamic acid negatively regulates extracellular ATP-induced reactive oxygen species signaling.
Myers RJ, Ghani A, Dhakal S, Joshi T, Kim D
Plant Signaling
Every time a deer grazes your garden or a pest bores into a stem, your plants are running a finely tuned chemical triage system — and this research shows that system has a built-in 'volume knob' that prevents alarm signals from spiraling out of control, which could one day be dialed up to breed crops that defend themselves faster.
Plants can't run away from danger, so they have chemical alarm systems that kick in when they're injured. Scientists found that two of these alarm chemicals — one released from damaged cells' energy stores and one that's an amino acid — work through almost completely separate pathways and actually dial each other down. Even more surprising, which alarm takes the lead depends on whether the injury happens in the plant's vascular system (its 'veins') or in the surrounding tissue.
Key Findings
Extracellular ATP and L-glutamic acid trigger almost entirely non-overlapping sets of wound-response genes in distant tissues, despite both being released during injury.
Reactive oxygen species production after injury in non-vascular tissues depended primarily on ATP receptors (P2K1/P2K2), while vascular tissue injury responses depended primarily on glutamic acid receptors (GLR3.3/GLR3.6).
Plants lacking both glutamic acid receptors showed a significantly enhanced reactive oxygen species response to ATP, demonstrating that the glutamic acid signaling pathway actively suppresses the ATP signaling pathway.
chevron_right Technical Summary
When plants are wounded, they release two chemical alarm signals — extracellular ATP and the amino acid glutamic acid — that activate largely separate defense pathways depending on which tissue is damaged. Unexpectedly, the glutamic acid pathway suppresses the ATP pathway, revealing that plant wound signaling is more layered and self-regulating than previously understood.
Abstract Preview
Extracellular ATP (eATP) and L-Glutamic acid (L-Glu) are important damage associated molecular pattern (DAMP) molecules released from cells during injury. Both molecules trigger wound-associated si...
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