Cell
Volume 125, Issue 4, 19 May 2006, Pages 749-760
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Article
Perception of the Bacterial PAMP EF-Tu by the Receptor EFR Restricts Agrobacterium-Mediated Transformation

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Summary

Higher eukaryotes sense microbes through the perception of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs). Arabidopsis plants detect a variety of PAMPs including conserved domains of bacterial flagellin and of bacterial EF-Tu. Here, we show that flagellin and EF-Tu activate a common set of signaling events and defense responses but without clear synergistic effects. Treatment with either PAMP results in increased binding sites for both PAMPs. We used this finding in a targeted reverse-genetic approach to identify a receptor kinase essential for EF-Tu perception, which we called EFR. Nicotiana benthamiana, a plant unable to perceive EF-Tu, acquires EF-Tu binding sites and responsiveness upon transient expression of EFR. Arabidopsis efr mutants show enhanced susceptibility to the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens, as revealed by a higher efficiency of T-DNA transformation. These results demonstrate that EFR is the EF-Tu receptor and that plant defense responses induced by PAMPs such as EF-Tu reduce transformation by Agrobacterium.

Cited by (0)

3

These authors contributed equally to this work.

4

Present Address: The Sainsbury Laboratory, JIC, Colney Lane, Norwich, NR4 7UH, UK.

5

Present Address: Institute of Plant Sciences, ETH Zürich, Eschikon 33, CH-8315 Lindau, Switzerland.

6

Present address: ZMBP, University of Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 5, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany.