Heritable induced resistance in Arabidopsis thaliana: Tips and tools to improve effect size and reproducibility

Over a decade ago, three independent studies reported that pathogen‐ and herbivore‐exposed Arabidopsis thaliana produces primed progeny with increased resistance. Since then, heritable induced resistance (h‐IR) has been reported across numerous plant‐biotic interactions, revealing a regulatory funct...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Plant direct Vol. 7; no. 8; pp. e523 - n/a
Main Authors:	Furci, L., Pascual‐Pardo, D., Tirot, L., Zhang, P., Hannan Parker, A., Ton, J.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Oxford John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01-08-2023 John Wiley and Sons Inc Wiley
Subjects:	Acids Arabidopsis Arabidopsis thaliana biotic stress Cell division Chromatin Defense Disease DNA fingerprinting DNA methylation Epigenetics Flowers & plants Gene silencing heritable induced resistance Inoculation Leaves Meristems Nitric oxide Offspring Pathogens Pest resistance Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 Reproducibility Seedlings Tobacco
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Summary:	Over a decade ago, three independent studies reported that pathogen‐ and herbivore‐exposed Arabidopsis thaliana produces primed progeny with increased resistance. Since then, heritable induced resistance (h‐IR) has been reported across numerous plant‐biotic interactions, revealing a regulatory function of DNA (de)methylation dynamics. However, the identity of the epi‐alleles controlling h‐IR and the mechanisms by which they prime defense genes remain unknown, while the evolutionary significance of the response requires confirmation. Progress has been hampered by the relatively high variability, low effect size, and sometimes poor reproducibility of h‐IR, as is exemplified by a recent study that failed to reproduce h‐IR in A. thaliana by Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato (Pst). This study aimed to improve h‐IR effect size and reproducibility in the A. thaliana–Pst interaction. We show that recurrent Pst inoculations of seedlings result in stronger h‐IR than repeated inoculations of older plants and that disease‐related growth repression in the parents is a reliable marker for h‐IR effect size in F1 progeny. Furthermore, RT‐qPCR‐based expression profiling of genes controlling DNA methylation maintenance revealed that the elicitation of strong h‐IR upon seedling inoculations is marked by reduced expression of the chromatin remodeler DECREASE IN DNA METHYLATION 1 (DDM1) gene, which is maintained in the apical meristem and transmitted to F1 progeny. Two additional genes, MET1 and CHROMOMETHYLASE3 (CMT3), displayed similar transcriptional repression in progeny from seedling‐inoculated plants. Thus, reduced expression of DDM1, MET1, and CMT3 can serve as a marker of robust h‐IR in F1 progeny. Our report offers valuable information and markers to improve the effect size and reproducibility of h‐IR in the A. thaliana–Pst model interaction.
Bibliography:	interaction. Pseudomonas syringae – To facilitate research on heritable induced resistance, we present new evidence to improve effect size and reproducibility of the response in the One‐sentence summary A. thaliana ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 One‐sentence summary: To facilitate research on heritable induced resistance, we present new evidence to improve effect size and reproducibility of the response in the A. thaliana–Pseudomonas syringae interaction.
ISSN:	2475-4455 2475-4455
DOI:	10.1002/pld3.523