Identification of Arabidopsis ethylene-responsive element binding factors with distinct induction kinetics after pathogen infection

Ethylene-responsive element binding factors (ERF) proteins are plant-specific transcription factors, many of which have been linked to stress responses. We have identified four Arabidopsis ERF genes whose expression was specifically induced by avirulent and virulent strains of the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato, with overlapping but distinct induction kinetics. However, a delay in ERF mRNA accumulation after infection with the virulent strain was observed when compared with the avirulent strain. The induction of ERF gene expression in most cases preceded the mRNA accumulation of a basic chitinase gene, a potential downstream target for one or more of these ERFs. The expression of the ERF genes was examined among different Arabidopsis tissues, in response to the signaling molecules ethylene, methyl jasmonate, and salicylic acid (SA), and in Arabidopsis mutants with decreased or enhanced susceptibility to pathogens, and significant differences were observed. For example, in seedlings, some of the ERF genes were not induced by SA in the wild-type but were SA responsive in the pad4-1 mutant, suggesting that PAD4-1, which acts upstream of SA accumulation, is also involved in repressing the SA-induced expression of specific ERF genes. The four ERF proteins were shown to contain transcriptional activation domains. These results suggest that transcriptional activation cascades involving ERF proteins may be important for plant defense to pathogen attack and that some ERF family members could be involved in the cross-talk between SA-and jasmonic acid-signaling pathways.