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Article|11 Feb 2022|OPEN
Potato StLecRK-IV.1 negatively regulates late blight resistance by affecting the stability of a positive regulator StTET8 
Lei Guo1,2,3 , Yetong Qi2,3,4 , Yang Mu2,3,4 , Jing Zhou2,3,4 , Wenhe Lu1 , , Zhendong Tian,2,3,4,5 ,
1College of Agronomy, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, 150030, China
2Key Laboratory of Horticultural Plant Biology (HZAU), Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agricultural University (HZAU),Wuhan, 430070, China
3Key Laboratory of Potato Biology and Biotechnology (HZAU), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Huazhong Agricultural University,Wuhan, 430070, China
4Potato Engineering and Technology Research Center of Hubei Province, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China
5Hubei Hongshan Laboratory. Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China
*Corresponding author. E-mail: luwenhe60@163.com,tianzhd@mail.hzau.edu.cn

Horticulture Research 9,
Article number: uhac010 (2022)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/hr/uhac010
Views: 420

Received: 16 Aug 2021
Revised: 12 Dec 2021
Published online: 11 Feb 2022

Abstract

Plant receptor-like kinases (RLKs) regulate many processes in plants. Many RLKs perform significant roles in plant immunity. Lectin receptor-like kinases (LecRLKs) are a large family of RLKs. However, the function of most LecRLKs is poorly understood. In this study, we show that a potato LecRLK, StLecRK-IV.1, is involved in plant immunity against Phytophthora infestans. As a negative regulator of immunity, StLecRK-IV.1 is downregulated by P. infestans and activated by abscisic acid. The transient expression of StLecRK-IV.1 in Nicotiana benthamiana enhanced P. infestans leaf colonization significantly. In contrast, the size of disease lesions caused by P. infestans was reduced by virus-induced gene silencing of the StLecRK-IV.1 ortholog in N. benthamianaNbLecRK-IV.1, as well as in potato plants with stable RNA interference of StLecRK-IV.1. Tetraspanin-8 (StTET8) was identified to be interacting with StLecRK-IV.1 using a membrane yeast two-hybrid system, which was further verified by co-immunoprecipitation, a luciferase complementation assay, and a bimolecular fluorescence complementation test. StTET8 is a positive immune regulator that restrains P. infestans infection. The co-expression of StLecRK-IV.1 with StTET8 antagonized the positive roles of StTET8 against P. infestans. Moreover, the co-expression of StTET8 with StLecRK-IV.1 affected the stability of StTET8, which was confirmed by a western blot assay and confocal assay. Taken together, our work first reveal that a potato L-type lectin RLK, StLecRK-IV.1, negatively regulates plant immunity by targeting a positive regulator, StTET8, through affecting its stability.