Species- and organ-specific contribution of peroxisomal cinnamate:CoA ligases to benzoic and salicylic acid biosynthesis

Yukang Wang; Huiying Miao; Jiehua Qiu; Menghui Liu; Gaochen Jin; Wenxuan Zhang; Shuyan Song; Pengxiang Fan; Xiufang Xin; Jianping Hu; Ran Li; Ronghui Pan

doi:10.1093/plcell/koae329

Species- and organ-specific contribution of peroxisomal cinnamate:CoA ligases to benzoic and salicylic acid biosynthesis

Plant Cell. 2024 Dec 18:koae329. doi: 10.1093/plcell/koae329. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Yukang Wang^{1

2}, Huiying Miao¹, Jiehua Qiu³, Menghui Liu⁴, Gaochen Jin¹, Wenxuan Zhang¹, Shuyan Song^{1

2}, Pengxiang Fan¹, Xiufang Xin⁴, Jianping Hu⁵, Ran Li¹, Ronghui Pan^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology and Breeding, College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China.
² ZJU-Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 311215, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology and Breeding, China National Rice Research Institute, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 311400, China.
⁴ National Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China.
⁵ Michigan State University-Department of Energy Plant Research Laboratory and Plant Biology Department, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.

PMID: 39692580
DOI: 10.1093/plcell/koae329

Abstract

Salicylic acid (SA) is a prominent defense hormone whose basal level, organ-specific accumulation, and physiological role vary widely among plant species. Of the two known pathways of plant SA biosynthesis, the phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) pathway is more ancient and universal but its biosynthetic and physiological roles in diverse plant species remain unclear. Studies in which the PAL pathway is specifically or completely inhibited, as well as a direct comparison of diverse species and different organs within the same species, are needed. To this end, we analyzed the PAL pathway in rice (Oryza sativa) and Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), two distantly related model plants whose basal SA levels and distributions differ tremendously at the organism and tissue levels. Based on our recent identification of the rice peroxisomal cinnamate:CoA ligases (CNLs), we identified two peroxisomal CNLs from Arabidopsis and showed CNL as the most functionally specific enzyme among the known enzymes of the PAL pathway. We then revealed the species- and organ-specific contribution of the PAL pathway to benzoic and salicylic acid biosynthesis and clarified its physiological importance in rice and Arabidopsis. Our findings highlight the necessity to consider species and organ types in future SA-related studies and may help to breed new disease-resistant crops.

Keywords: Arabidopsis; Benzoic acid (BA); Peroxisome; Salicylic acid (SA); rice; the phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) pathway.

© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of American Society of Plant Biologists. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.