Similarities of Tobacco Mosaic Virus-Induced Hypersensitive Cell Death and Copper-Induced Abiotic Cell Death in Tobacco

Hypersensitive cell death of plants during incompatible plant-pathogen interactions is one of the efficient defense mechanisms of plants against pathogen infections. For better understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in the plant hypersensitive response (HR), TMV-induced biotic plant cell death and CuSO4-induced abiotic plant cell death were compared in terms of expression patterns of ten different defense-related genes as molecular markers. The genes include five pathogenesis-related protein genes, two plant secondary metabolite-associated genes, two oxidative stress-related genes and one wound-inducible gene isolated from tobacco. Northern blot analyses revealed that a same set of defense-related genes was induced during both biotic and abiotic cell death but with different time and magnitude. The expression of defense-related genes in tobacco plants was temporarily coincided with the time of cell death. However, when suspension cell cultures was used to monitor the expression of defense-related genes, different patterns of the gene expression were detected. This result implies that three are common and, in addition, also different branches of signaling pathways leading to the induced expression of defense-related genes in tobacco during the pathogen- and heavy metal-induced cell death.