"Type A" response regulators are involved in the plant-microbe interaction

Abstract

Plant-microbe interaction can be established as either symbiotic or pathogenic association. Regardless of any type of interaction interplayed, common strategy can be seen in the partners. Recent advances in bioinformatics and availability of abundant transcriptomics data have provided new tools for comparative analysis and achieving significant insights into underlying regulatory background of symbiosis and pathogenesis. In the present study, to find the genes which are involved in both pathogenic and symbiotic interactions, we used the microarray data pertaining bacterial interactions in M. truncatula. Those data which were publically available in NCBI analyzed using Expression Console and FlexyArray. In order to interpret gene expression patterns and investigate the relationship between co-over expressed genes, a literature survey was performed using the tools provided by Pathway Studio v9 (Elsevier). Our data analysis identified type-A response regulators (RRs) as genes that potentially respond to pathogenic and symbiotic interactions. Type-A RRs act as negative regulators of cytokinins. This study speculates that plants do not recognize bacterial pathogens from symbionts at early stage of plant-microbe interactions. Pathway analysis revealed the involvement of WUSCHEL (WUS) and SIAMES (SIM) in cross-talk between pathogen and type-A of RRs. Considering the central role of WUS and SIM in cell division, we suggest that the reduction of growth by repression of cell division is one of the adaptive responses in plants to bacterial interaction. In this way, plants try to preserve the limited energy of the mother cell and to avoid heritable damage.