New perspectives into jasmonate roles in maize

摘要

It is well-known from the model dicot-yledonous plants,Arabidopsisandtomato, that jasmonates (JAs) act asdefense hormonesin plantadue to theirpotent ability to mediate defensiveresponses against insect/pathogen attacksor harsh environmental conditions. JA isalso required for various developmentalprocesses such as male fertility, seed mat-uration, root extension, and leaf senes-cence. In our recently publishedPlantCellpaper, the multiple roles of JA in themonocotyledonous agro-economicallyimportant model plant, maize, wereinvestigated by comprehensive analysis ofJA-deficient double mutant disrupted inthe two oxophytodienoate reductasegenes,OPR7andOPR8. These twogenes are the closest orthologs of the Ara-bidopsis JA-producingOPR3and aretheonly maize OPRs required for JA biosyn-thesis. With this mutant, we previouslyshowed that JA is essential for both maleand female reproductive development,and required for the regulation of braceroot pigmentation, leaf senescence, anddefense against oomycetePythium aristo-sporum,and beet armyworm (Spodopteraexigua). In this addendum, we expandedthe investigation into the function of JAin elongation of sheaths, leaves, androots, and its involvement in photomor-phogenesis of seedlings.