The role of natural products in plant-insect interactions

Title: Plant-insect interactions studied using transgenic Lotus japonicus with altered natural product composition

Danish title: Plante-insekt interaktioner studeret ved hjælp af gensplejsede Lotus japonicus planter med ændret indhold af naturstoffer

 

L. japonicus has co-evolved with Zygaenae moths. Members of the Zygaenae are able to sequester cyanogenic glucosides present in their host plant by storing the glucosides in special large and small cavities. When attacked by a predator, the moths are able to empty out the cavities using the cyanogenic glucosides as defense system towards their enemy. Thus the moth has developed a system to utilize a defense compound in its host plant to defend itself. The detailed interplay between Zygenae species and its host plant is now investigated using transgenic L. japonicus plants. The transgenic plants are engineered to be devoid of cyanogenic glucosides, to have different cyanogenic glucoside profiles or to be devoid of the beta-glucosidase necessary for cyanogenic glucoside degradation. Parallel plant-insect studies will be carried out with Arabidopsis plants accumulating the cynogenic glucosides dhurrin and with insects able to utilize Arabidopsis as host plant and for which DNA macro or micro array chips are available. In this way, the chemical war-fare between plants and insects can be followed at the transcriptional level by transcriptiome analyses and by promoter reporter gene fusions, as well as through metabolite profiling. The aim is to enhance our knowledge of the importance of cyanogenic glucosides in plant insect interactions

 

Researchers involved: Mika Zagrobelny, Birger Lindberg Møller, Søren Bak, Anne Vinther Rasmussen

 

Foreign collaborators: David Galbraith, University of Arizona, Tucson, US; Michael Udvardi, Max Planck Institute of

Molecular Plant Physiology, Golm, Germany; S. Tabata, Kazusa DNA Research Institute, Japan; Suzanne Paquette, Department of Biological Structure, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, US; Bodil Jørgensen, Biotechnology Group, Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, DK

 

Financial support: Research Council for Technology and Production, KVL PhD-stipend; Danish Natioanl Research Foundation