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Research paper

Quercetin induces pathogen resistance through the increase of salicylic acid biosynthesis in Arabidopsis

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Article: 2270835 | Received 12 Sep 2023, Accepted 10 Oct 2023, Published online: 30 Oct 2023
 

ABSTRACT

Quercetin is a flavonol belonging to the flavonoid group of polyphenols. Quercetin is reported to have a variety of biological functions, including antioxidant, pigment, auxin transport inhibitor and root nodulation factor. Additionally, quercetin is known to be involved in bacterial pathogen resistance in Arabidopsis through the transcriptional increase of pathogenesis-related (PR) genes. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying how quercetin promotes pathogen resistance remain elusive. In this study, we showed that the transcriptional increases of PR genes were achieved by the monomerization and nuclear translocation of nonexpressor of pathogenesis-related proteins 1 (NPR1). Interestingly, salicylic acid (SA) was approximately 2-fold accumulated by the treatment with quercetin. Furthermore, we showed that the increase of SA biosynthesis by quercetin was induced by the transcriptional increases of typical SA biosynthesis-related genes. In conclusion, this study strongly suggests that quercetin induces bacterial pathogen resistance through the increase of SA biosynthesis in Arabidopsis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

J.A., W.S.C. designed, planned and organized the experiments. J.A., M.L.A.P., Z.R., J.P. and J.L. performed the experiments. J.A., S.B. and S.H.K. analyzed the data. J.A., J.C.H. and W.S.C. wrote the manuscript with feedback from all authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15592324.2023.2270835

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (2020R1A6A1A03044344, 2021R1A6A3A01088557, 2023R1A2C1005572 and RS-2023-00235511).