Ubiquitylome Analysis Reveals a Central Role for the Ubiquitin-Proteasome System in Plant Innate Immunity

Abstract

Protein ubiquitylation profoundly expands proteome functionality and diversifies cellular signaling processes, with recent studies providing ample evidence for its importance to plant immunity. To gain a proteome-wide appreciation of ubiquitylome dynamics during immune recognition, we employed a two-step affinity enrichment protocol based on a 6His-tagged ubiquitin (Ub) variant coupled with high sensitivity mass spectrometry to identify Arabidopsis proteins rapidly ubiquitylated upon plant perception of the microbe-associated molecular pattern (MAMP) peptide flg22. The catalog from two-week-old seedlings treated for only 30 minutes with flg22 contained nearly 1,000 conjugates, 150 Ub footprints, and all seven types of Ub linkages, and included previously uncharacterized conjugates of immune components, such as RECEPTOR-LIKE KINASE 1 (RKL1) shown to negatively regulate plant immunity. In vivo ubiquitylation assays confirmed modification of several candidates upon immune elicitation, and revealed distinct modification patterns and dynamics for key immune components, including poly- and monoubiquitylation, as well as induced or reduced levels of ubiquitylation. Gene ontology and network analyses of the collection also uncovered rapid modification of the Ub-proteasome system itself, suggesting a critical auto-regulatory loop necessary for an effective MAMP-triggered immune response and subsequent disease resistance. Included targets were UBIQUITIN-CONJUGATING ENZYME 13 (UBC13) and proteasome component REGULATORY PARTICLE NON-ATPASE SUBUNIT 8b (RPN8b), whose subsequent biochemical and genetic analyses implied negative roles in immune elicitation. Collectively, our proteomic analyses further strengthened the connection between ubiquitylation and flg22-based immune signaling, identified novel components and pathways regulating plant immunity, and increased the database of ubiquitylated substrates in plants. One-sentence summaryProteome-wide catalogs of ubiquitylated proteins revealed a rapid engagement of the ubiquitin-proteasome system in Arabidopsis innate immunity.