Genetics and regulation of combined abiotic and biotic stress tolerance in tomato

Projections on the impact of climate change on agricultural productivity foresee prolonged and/or increased stress intensities and enlargement of a significant number of pathogens habitats. This significantly raises the occurrence probability of (new) abiotic and biotic stress combinations. With stress tolerance research being mostly focused on responses to individual stresses, our understanding of plants’ ability to adapt to combined stresses is limited. In an attempt to bridge this knowledge gap, we hierarchized in chapter 1 existing information on individual abiotic or biotic stress adaptation mechanisms taking into consideration different anatomical, physiological and molecular layers of plant stress tolerance and defense. We identified potentially crucial regulatory intersections between abiotic and biotic stress signalling pathways following the pathogenesis timeline, and emphasized the importance of subcellular to whole plant level interactions by successfully dissecting the phenotypic response to combined stress. We considered both explicit and shared adaptive responses to abiotic and biotic stress, which included amongst others R-gene and systemic acquired resistance as well as reactive oxygen species (ROS), redox and hormone signalling, and proposed breeding targets and strategies. In chapter 3 we focused on salt stress and powdery mildew combination in tomato, a vegetable crop with a wealth of genetic resources, and started with a genetic study. S. habrochaites LYC4 was found to exhibit resistance to both salt stress and powdery mildew. A LYC4 introgression line (IL) population segregated for both salt stress tolerance and powdery mildew resistance. Introgressions contributing to salt tolerance, including Na+ and Cl- accumulation, and powdery mildew resistance were precisely pinpointed with the aid of SNP marker genotyping. Salt stress (100mM NaCl) combined with powdery mildew infection increased the susceptibility of the population to powdery mildew in an additive manner, while decreasing the phenotypic variation for this trait. Only a few overlapping QTLs for disease resistance and salt stress tolerance were identified (one on a short region at the top of Chromosome 9 where numerous receptor-like kinases reside). Most genetic loci were specific for either salt stress tolerance or powdery mildew resistance indicating distinct genetic architectures. This enables genetic pyramiding approaches to build up combined stress tolerance. Considering that abiotic stress in nature can be of variable intensities, we evaluated selected ILs under combined stress with salinity ranging from mild to severe (50, 100 and 150mM NaCl) in chapter 4. Mild salt stress (50mM) increased powdery mildew susceptibility and was accompanied by accelerated cell death-like senescence. On the contrary, severe salt stress (150mM) reduced the disease symptoms and this correlated with leaf Na+ and Cl- content in the leaves. The effects of salt stress on powdery mildew resistance may be dependent on resistance type and mechanisms. Near Isogenic Lines (NILs) that carry different PM resistance genes (Ol-1 (associated with slow hypersensitivity response, HR), ol-2 (an mlo mutant associated with papilla formation) and Ol-4 (an R gene associated with fast HR) indeed exhibited differential responses to combined stress. NIL-Ol-1 resembled the LYC4 ILs response, while NIL-ol-2 and NIL-Ol-4 maintained robust resistance and exhibited no senescence symptoms across all combinations, despite the observed reduction in callose deposition in NIL-ol-2. Increased susceptibility, senescence and fitness cost of NIL-Ol-1 under combined stress coincided with high induction of ethylene and jasmonate biosynthesis and response pathways, highly induced expression of cell wall invertase LsLIN6, and a reduction in the expression of genes encoding for antioxidant enzymes. These observations underlined the significance of stress intensity and mechanism of resistance to the outcome of salt stress and powdery mildew combination, underscoring the involvement of ethylene signalling to the susceptibility response under combined stress. To examine the significance of hormone signalling in combined stress responses we evaluated crosses of tomato hormone mutants notabilis (ABA-deficient), defenseless1 (JA-deficient) and epinastic (ET overproducer) with NIL-Ol-1, NIL-ol-2 and NIL-Ol-4 in chapter 5. The highly pleiotropic epinastic mutant increased susceptibility of NIL-Ol-1, but decreased the senescence response under combined stress, and resulted in partial breakdown of NIL-ol-2 resistance, accompanied by reduced callose deposition. The effects of ET overproduction on susceptibility were more pronounced under combined stress. ABA deficiency in notabilis on the other hand greatly reduced susceptibility of NIL-Ol-1under combined stress at the expense of stronger growth reduction, and induced ROS overproduction. Partial resistance breakdown in the ol-2xnotabilis mutant accompanied by reduced callose deposition was observed, and this was restored under combined stress. Jasmonic acid deficiency phenotypic effects in defenseless mutants were subtle with modest increase in susceptibility for NIL-Ol-1 and NIL-ol-2. For NIL-ol-2 this increased susceptibility was reverted under combined stress. NIL-Ol-4 resistance remained robust across all mutant and treatment combinations. These results highlight the catalytic role of ET and ABA signalling on susceptibility and senescence under combined stress, accentuating concomitantly the importance of signalling fine tuning to minimize pleiotropic effects. The potential of exploiting transcription factors to enhance tolerance to multiple stress factors and their combination was investigated in chapter 6 through the identification and functional characterization of tomato homologues of AtWRKYs 11, 29, 48, 70 and 72. Thirteen tomato WRKY homologues were identified, of which 9 were overexpressed (using transformation with A. tumefaciens) and 12 stably silenced via RNAi in tomato cultivar Money Maker (MM). SlWRKY11-OE and SlWRKY23-OE overexpressors and RNAi lines of SlWRKY7 and SlWRKY9 showed both increased biomass and relative salt tolerance. SlWRKY6-OE exhibited the highest relative salt stress tolerance, but had strongly decreased growth under control conditions. Exceptional phenotypes under control conditions were observed for SlWRKY10-OE (stunted growth) and SlWRKY23-RNAi (necrotic symptoms). These phenotypes were significantly restored under salt stress, and accompanied by decreased ROS production. Both lines exhibited increased resistance to powdery mildew, but this resistance was compromised under salt stress combination, indicating that these genes have important functions at the intersection of abiotic and biotic stress adaptation. SlWRKY23 appears to have a key regulatory role in the control of abiotic stress/defense and cell death control. Experimental observations are critically discussed in the General Discussion with emphasis on potential distinctive responses in different pathosystems and abiotic and biotic stress resistance mechanisms as well as genetic manipulations for effectively achieving combined stress tolerance. This includes deployment of individual common regulators as well as pyramiding of non-(negatively) interacting components such as R-genes with abiotic stress resistance genes, and their translation potential for other abiotic and biotic stress combinations. Understanding and improving plant tolerance to stress combinations can greatly contribute to accelerating crop improvement towards sustained or even increased productivity under stress.