Synthetic Rhamnolipid Bolaforms (SRBs) as inducers of plant innate immunity

peer reviewedNatural and synthetic elicitors have demonstrated a high potential for a more sustainable agriculture and the control of plant diseases via the induction of plant defense responses. Microbial biosurfactants like surfactin (Bacillus spp.) and rhamnolipids (Pseudomonas spp.) have recently been shown to stimulate the plant innate immune system. Unlike canonical elicitors exemplified by bacterial flagellin, some data suggest that surfactin and rhamnolipid perception do not depend on the presence of specific receptors in the plant cell but rather on the direct interaction of the molecules with the lipid phase of the plant plasma membrane. Moreover, surfactin and rhamnolipid interactions with plant cells are thought to depend on their amphipathicity and the length of their acyl chain. In an attempt to mimic the efficacy of these natural biosurfactants, we have synthesized via green chemistry new bio-inspired amphiphilic elicitors. In this work, we present the characterization of Arabidopsis innate immunity in response to synthetic rhamnolipid bolaforms (SRBs) with variable acyl chain lengths. Using an original pluridisciplinary approach that covers biophysical and biological assays, we assessed the capacity of SRBs to interact with plasma membranes and to stimulate defense responses in Arabidopsis thaliana. Our results show that SRBs, depending on the acyl chain length, differentially activated early and late immunityrelated signaling events, defense gene expression and cell death. Moreover, we have demonstrated that an unsaturated SRB containing a C14 acyl chain is effective to induce local resistance against the hemibiotrophic bacteria Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato. The biophysical studies suggest that a direct interaction of the SRB C14 with the plasma membrane lipids would be involved in the plant perception and induction of plant immunity