AtDEK2, a dual histone mark reader regulates plant immunity [RNA-seq]

Arabidopsis DEK2, a nuclear protein involved in multiple chromatin-related processes, was found to be phosphorylated in response to flg22 treatment suggesting a role in plant immunity to bacterial pathogens. dek2 loss of function mutants were susceptible to bacterial as well as fungal pathogens. Transcriptome data of the dek2-1 mutant shows that AtDEK2 is a transcriptional repressor of defense related genes, hormone synthesis & signaling genes. ChIP-Seq analysis indicates that DEK2 binds to motifs of several families of transcription factors (TFs) and to class I TCP binding motif regions with the highest affinity. We determined that DEK2 is recruited to specific regions on the chromatin by transcription factors. Our data suggests that DEK2 is a reader of the dual histone mark, H3K4me3K27me3. Finally, based on our data we postulate a hypothetical working model for the function of DEK2 as a transcriptional repressor and targets regions with H3K4me3K27me3 marks. Overall design: WT (col-0) and dek2-1 mutant plans were either mock treated or with the bacteria Pst DC3000 hrcC- strain. For each sample 3 biological replicates were used.