Research article
Grapevine cell early activation of specific responses to DIMEB, a resveratrol elicitor
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* Corresponding author: Claudio Moser claudio.moser@iasma.it
1 IASMA Research and Innovation Center, Fondazione Edmund Mach, S. Michele a/Adige I-38010, Italy
2 Current address: Department for Sciences, Technologies and Markets of Grapevine and Wine, Via della Pieve 70, I-37029 San Floriano di Valpolicella (VR), Italy
3 Current address: Centre for Integrative Biology (CIBIO), University of Trento, Via delle Regole 101, 38060 Mattarello (TN), Italy
BMC Genomics 2009, 10:363 doi:10.1186/1471-2164-10-363
Published: 6 August 2009Abstract
Background
In response to pathogen attack, grapevine synthesizes phytoalexins belonging to the family of stilbenes. Grapevine cell cultures represent a good model system for studying the basic mechanisms of plant response to biotic and abiotic elicitors. Among these, modified β-cyclodextrins seem to act as true elicitors inducing strong production of the stilbene resveratrol.
Results
The transcriptome changes of Vitis riparia × Vitis berlandieri grapevine cells in response to the modified β-cyclodextrin, DIMEB, were analyzed 2 and 6 h after treatment using a suppression subtractive hybridization experiment and a microarray analysis respectively. At both time points, we identified a specific set of induced genes belonging to the general phenylpropanoid metabolism, including stilbenes and hydroxycinnamates, and to defence proteins such as PR proteins and chitinases. At 6 h we also observed a down-regulation of the genes involved in cell division and cell-wall loosening.
Conclusions
We report the first large-scale study of the molecular effects of DIMEB, a resveratrol inducer, on grapevine cell cultures. This molecule seems to mimic a defence elicitor which enhances the physical barriers of the cell, stops cell division and induces phytoalexin synthesis.