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10 01, 2020;10 (1): 16281.

Arabidopsis, tobacco, nightshade and elm take insect eggs as herbivore alarm and show similar transcriptomic alarm responses.

Tobias Lortzing, Reinhard Kunze, Anke Steppuhn, Monika Hilker, Vivien Lortzing
Author Information
  1. Tobias Lortzing: Molecular Ecology, Dahlem Centre of Plant Sciences, Institute of Biology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
  2. Reinhard Kunze: Applied Genetics, Dahlem Centre of Plant Sciences, Institute of Biology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
  3. Anke Steppuhn: Molecular Ecology, Dahlem Centre of Plant Sciences, Institute of Biology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
  4. Monika Hilker: Applied Zoology/Animal Ecology, Dahlem Centre of Plant Sciences, Institute of Biology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
  5. Vivien Lortzing: Applied Zoology/Animal Ecology, Dahlem Centre of Plant Sciences, Institute of Biology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany. Vivien.lortzing@fu-berlin.de.
PMID: 33004864 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-72955-y

Abstract

Plants respond to insect eggs with transcriptional changes, resulting in enhanced defence against hatching larvae. However, it is unknown whether phylogenetically distant plant species show conserved transcriptomic responses to insect eggs and subsequent larval feeding. We used Generally Applicable Gene set Enrichment (GAGE) on gene ontology terms to answer this question and analysed transcriptome data from Arabidopsis thaliana, wild tobacco (Nicotiana attenuata), bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) and elm trees (Ulmus minor) infested by different insect species. The different plant-insect species combinations showed considerable overlap in their transcriptomic responses to both eggs and larval feeding. Within these conformable responses across the plant-insect combinations, the responses to eggs and feeding were largely analogous, and about one-fifth of these analogous responses were further enhanced when egg deposition preceded larval feeding. This conserved transcriptomic response to eggs and larval feeding comprised gene sets related to several phytohormones and to the phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathway, of which specific branches were activated in different plant-insect combinations. Since insect eggs and larval feeding activate conserved sets of biological processes in different plant species, we conclude that plants with different lifestyles share common transcriptomic alarm responses to insect eggs, which likely enhance their defence against hatching larvae.

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MeSH Term

Animals
Arabidopsis
Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
Insecta
Larva
Lepidoptera
Ovum
Plant Defense Against Herbivory
Solanum
Nicotiana
Transcriptome
Ulmus
Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
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