Banana fruit NAC transcription factor MaNAC5 cooperates with MaWRKYs to enhance the expression of pathogenesis-related genes against Colletotrichum musae.

Plants respond to pathogen attack by the modulation of a large set of genes, which are regulated by different types of transcription factor (TF). NAC (NAM/ATAF/CUC) and WRKY are plant-specific families of TFs, and have received much attention as transcriptional regulators in plant pathogen defence. However, the cooperation between NAC and WRKY TFs in the disease response remains largely unknown. Our previous study has revealed that two banana fruit WRKY TFs, MaWRKY1 and MaWRKY2, are involved in salicylic acid (SA)- and methyl jasmonate (MeJA)-induced resistance against Colletotrichum musae via binding to promoters of pathogenesis-related (PR) genes. Here, we found that MaNAC1, MaNAC2 and MaNAC5 were up-regulated after C. musae infection, and were also significantly enhanced by SA and MeJA treatment. Protein-protein interaction analysis showed that MaNAC5 physically interacted with MaWRKY1 and MaWRKY2. More importantly, dual-luciferase reporter (DLR) assay revealed that MaNAC5, MaWRKY1 and MaWRKY2 were transcriptional activators, and individually or cooperatively activated the transcriptional activities of MaPR1-1, MaPR2, MaPR10c and MaCHIL1 genes. Collectively, our results indicate that MaNAC5 cooperates with MaWRKY1 and MaWRKY2 to regulate the expression of a specific set of PR genes in the disease response, and to contribute at least partially to SA- and MeJA-induced pathogen resistance.