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A fungal endophyte induces transcription of genes encoding a redundant fungicide pathway in its host plant

BACKGROUND: Taxol is an anti-cancer drug harvested from Taxus trees, proposed ecologically to act as a fungicide. Taxus is host to fungal endophytes, defined as organisms that inhabit plants without causing disease. The Taxus endophytes have been shown to synthesize Taxol in vitro, providing Taxus w...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Soliman, Sameh SM, Trobacher, Christopher P, Tsao, Rong, Greenwood, John S, Raizada, Manish N
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3700885/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23802696
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2229-13-93
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author Soliman, Sameh SM
Trobacher, Christopher P
Tsao, Rong
Greenwood, John S
Raizada, Manish N
author_facet Soliman, Sameh SM
Trobacher, Christopher P
Tsao, Rong
Greenwood, John S
Raizada, Manish N
author_sort Soliman, Sameh SM
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Taxol is an anti-cancer drug harvested from Taxus trees, proposed ecologically to act as a fungicide. Taxus is host to fungal endophytes, defined as organisms that inhabit plants without causing disease. The Taxus endophytes have been shown to synthesize Taxol in vitro, providing Taxus with a second potential biosynthetic route for this protective metabolite. Taxol levels in plants vary 125-fold between individual trees, but the underlying reason has remained unknown. RESULTS: Comparing Taxus trees or branches within a tree, correlations were observed between Taxol content, and quantity of its resident Taxol-producing endophyte, Paraconiothyrium SSM001. Depletion of fungal endophyte in planta by fungicide reduced plant Taxol accumulation. Fungicide treatment of intact plants caused concomitant decreases in transcript and/or protein levels corresponding to two critical genes required for plant Taxol biosynthesis. Taxol showed fungicidal activity against fungal pathogens of conifer wood, the natural habitat of the Taxol-producing endophyte. Consistent with other Taxol-producing endophytes, SSM001 was resistant to Taxol. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that the variation in Taxol content between intact Taxus plants and/or tissues is at least in part caused by varying degrees of transcriptional elicitation of plant Taxol biosynthetic genes by its Taxol-producing endophyte. As Taxol is a fungicide, and the endophyte is resistant to Taxol, we discuss how this endophyte strategy may be to prevent colonization by its fungal competitors but at minimal metabolic cost to itself.
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spelling pubmed-37008852013-07-04 A fungal endophyte induces transcription of genes encoding a redundant fungicide pathway in its host plant Soliman, Sameh SM Trobacher, Christopher P Tsao, Rong Greenwood, John S Raizada, Manish N BMC Plant Biol Research Article BACKGROUND: Taxol is an anti-cancer drug harvested from Taxus trees, proposed ecologically to act as a fungicide. Taxus is host to fungal endophytes, defined as organisms that inhabit plants without causing disease. The Taxus endophytes have been shown to synthesize Taxol in vitro, providing Taxus with a second potential biosynthetic route for this protective metabolite. Taxol levels in plants vary 125-fold between individual trees, but the underlying reason has remained unknown. RESULTS: Comparing Taxus trees or branches within a tree, correlations were observed between Taxol content, and quantity of its resident Taxol-producing endophyte, Paraconiothyrium SSM001. Depletion of fungal endophyte in planta by fungicide reduced plant Taxol accumulation. Fungicide treatment of intact plants caused concomitant decreases in transcript and/or protein levels corresponding to two critical genes required for plant Taxol biosynthesis. Taxol showed fungicidal activity against fungal pathogens of conifer wood, the natural habitat of the Taxol-producing endophyte. Consistent with other Taxol-producing endophytes, SSM001 was resistant to Taxol. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that the variation in Taxol content between intact Taxus plants and/or tissues is at least in part caused by varying degrees of transcriptional elicitation of plant Taxol biosynthetic genes by its Taxol-producing endophyte. As Taxol is a fungicide, and the endophyte is resistant to Taxol, we discuss how this endophyte strategy may be to prevent colonization by its fungal competitors but at minimal metabolic cost to itself. BioMed Central 2013-06-26 /pmc/articles/PMC3700885/ /pubmed/23802696 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2229-13-93 Text en Copyright © 2013 Soliman et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Soliman, Sameh SM
Trobacher, Christopher P
Tsao, Rong
Greenwood, John S
Raizada, Manish N
A fungal endophyte induces transcription of genes encoding a redundant fungicide pathway in its host plant
title A fungal endophyte induces transcription of genes encoding a redundant fungicide pathway in its host plant
title_full A fungal endophyte induces transcription of genes encoding a redundant fungicide pathway in its host plant
title_fullStr A fungal endophyte induces transcription of genes encoding a redundant fungicide pathway in its host plant
title_full_unstemmed A fungal endophyte induces transcription of genes encoding a redundant fungicide pathway in its host plant
title_short A fungal endophyte induces transcription of genes encoding a redundant fungicide pathway in its host plant
title_sort fungal endophyte induces transcription of genes encoding a redundant fungicide pathway in its host plant
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3700885/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23802696
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2229-13-93
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