Transcriptomic perspective on extracellular ATP signaling: a few curious trifles

ABSTRACT

Extracellular ATP is perceived by the purinoceptor P2K1, leading to induction of defense response in plants. Previously, we described the transcriptomic response to extracellular ATP in wild-type Arabidopsis seedlings and mutants of classical defense hormone signaling pathways (Jewell et al., 2019, Plant Physiol. 179: 1144–58), in which extracellular ATP was found to induce defense-related genes independently and also along with other defense signaling pathways. In the present study, we provide further analysis and discussion of the data that we neglected to describe in the previous transcriptomics report. Briefly, we describe transcriptomic differences between a P2K1 knockout mutant (dorn1) and wild-type seedlings in the absence of exogenous ATP as well as an analysis of genes more responsive to extracellular ATP in a P2K1 overexpression line. Finally, we describe an exaggerated response to extracellular ATP in the ein2 mutant and suggest testable explanations of this phenomenon.

KEYWORDS:

• Extracellular ATP
• purinergic signaling
• P2K1 purinoceptor
• damage-associated molecular patterns
• transcriptomics
• ethylene

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. Natalia Moroz at Washington State University for critical comments on the manuscript, and to Dr. Nathan Havko at Michigan State University for suggesting Moriae Encomium. PPNS No. 0776, Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Resource Sciences, Agricultural Research Center, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, 99164-6430, USA.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by NSF (grant no. IOS-1557813) and USDA NIFA (Hatch project no. 1015621).