Auxin is rapidly induced by herbivory attack and regulates systemic, jasmonate-dependent defenses

Machado, Ricardo A. R.; Robert, Christelle A. M.; Arce, Carla C. M.; Ferrieri, Abigail P; Xu, Shuqing; Jimenez-Aleman, Guillermo H; Baldwin, Ian T; Erb, Matthias (2016). Auxin is rapidly induced by herbivory attack and regulates systemic, jasmonate-dependent defenses. Plant Physiology, 172(1), pp. 521-532. American Society of Plant Physiologists 10.1104/pp.16.00940

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Plant responses to herbivore attack are regulated by phytohormonal networks. To date, the role of the auxin indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) in this context is not well understood. We quantified and manipulated the spatiotemporal patterns of IAA accumulation in herbivore-attacked Nicotiana attenuata plants to unravel its role in the regulation of plant secondary metabolism. We found that IAA is strongly, rapidly and specifically induced by herbivore attack. IAA is elicited by herbivore oral secretions and fatty acid conjugate elicitors and is accompanied by a rapid transcriptional increase of auxin biosynthetic YUCCA-like genes. IAA accumulation starts 30-60 seconds after local induction and peaks within 5 minutes after induction, thereby preceding the jasmonate (JA) burst. IAA accumulation does not require JA signaling and spreads rapidly from the wound site to systemic tissues. Complementation and transport inhibition experiments reveal that IAA is required for the herbivore-specific, jasmonate-dependent accumulation of anthocyanins and phenolamides in the stems. In contrast, IAA does not affect the accumulation of nicotine or 7-hydroxygeranyllinalool diterpene glycosides in the same tissue. Taken together, our results uncover IAA as a rapid and specific signal that regulates a subset of systemic, jasmonate-dependent secondary metabolites in herbivore-attacked plants.

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