Overexpression of rice OsLOL2 gene confers disease resistance in tobacco to Pseudomonas syringae pv. tabaci

LSD1-related proteins of Arabidopsis with LSD1-like zinc finger domains regulate disease resistance and programmed cell death (PCD). We cloned a rice OsLOL2 gene, orthologous to LSD1 of Arabidopsis and expressed it in a tobacco plant. Transgenic tobacco lines displayed enhanced disease resistance to a virulent bacterium Pseudomonas syringae pv. tabaci (Pst). RT-PCR analysis showed that overexpression of OsLOL2 in transgenic tobacco lines resulted in upregulation of two pathogenesis-related (PR) protein genes, PR2 and PR5. Our results suggest that overexpression of OsLOL2 in transgenic tobacco enhances the resistance through the induction of PR proteins and hypersensitive response-like reaction.