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JXB Advance Access originally published online on February 5, 2008
Journal of Experimental Botany 2008 59(3):609-618; doi:10.1093/jxb/erm337
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© 2008 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This paper is available online free of all access charges (see http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/open_access.html for further details)

RESEARCH PAPER

Tissue-specific PhBPBT expression is differentially regulated in response to endogenous ethylene

Richard J. Dexter1 *, Julian C. Verdonk1 *, Beverly A. Underwood1, Kenichi Shibuya1 {dagger}, Eric A. Schmelz2 and David G. Clark1,{ddagger}

1Department of Environmental Horticulture, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
2Center of Medical, Agricultural, and Veterinary Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Chemistry Research Unit, Gainesville, FL 32608, USA

{ddagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: geranium{at}ufl.edu

Ethylene is a gaseous plant hormone involved in many physiological processes including senescence, fruit ripening, and defence. Here the effects of pollination and wound-induced ethylene signals on transcript accumulation of benzoyl CoA:benzyl alcohol/phenylethanol benzoyltransferase (PhBPBT) are shown in Petuniaxhybrida cv. Mitchell ‘Diploid’ (MD). In petunia, PhBPBT is responsible for the biosynthesis of both benzyl benzoate and phenylethyl benzoate from benzyl alcohol and phenylethanol, respectively. RNAi-silenced lines, with reduced PhBPBT transcript, displayed reduced benzyl benzoate emission, and increased benzyl alcohol levels. Detailed expression analysis showed that PhBPBT is regulated by both light and an endogenous circadian rhythm, while it is also differentially regulated in response to ethylene in a tissue-specific manner. Twenty-four hours following pollination of MD flowers, expression of PhBPBT decreases in the corolla, while it increases in the ovary after 48 h. This is caused by ethylene that is emitted from the flower coinciding with fertilization as this is not observed in transgenic ethylene-insensitive plants (CaMV35S::etr1-1; 44568). Ethylene is also emitted from vegetative tissue of petunia following mechanical wounding, resulting in an increase in PhBPBT expression in the leaves where expression is normally below detection levels. Indicative of this pattern of expression, we hypothesize that PhBPBT and subsequent benzyl benzoate production is involved in defence-related processes in the corolla prior to pollination, in the ovary immediately following fertilization, and in vegetative tissue in response to wounding.

Key words: Benzenoids, benzyl benzoate, ethylene, floral volatiles, Petunia hybrida, wounding

* These authors have contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} Present address: National Institute of Floricultural Sciences, 2-1 Fujimoto, Tsukuba 305-8519, Japan.

Received 15 October 2007; Revised 30 November 2007 Accepted 3 December 2007


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