Mutation of phosphatidate phosphohydrolase genes confers broad-spectrum disease resistance in plants

Abstract

Phosphatidic acid (PA) is considered as a second messenger that interacts with protein kinases, phosphatases and NADPH oxidases, amplifying the signal to initiate plant defense signaling responses (Li and Wang, 2019). In rice, mutation ofRBL1causes the accumulation of PA, enhancing multipathogen resistance (Sha et al., 2023). In our previous study, we attempted to rescuerbl1mutant by overexpressing phosphatidate phosphohydrolase (PAH) genes. However, overexpression ofPAH2reduced the PA level but did not affect the disease resistance, which made us to reconsider the importance of PA andPAHin rice immunity. Here, we identified that mutation ofPAHscaused PA accumulation and enhanced multipathogen resistance in rice andArabidopsis.