Vitamin B(1) (
thiamine) is an essential nutrient for humans.
Vitamin B(1) deficiency causes
beriberi, which disturbs the central nervous and circulatory systems. In countries in which rice (Oryza sativa) is a major food,
thiamine deficiency is prevalent because polishing of rice removes most of the
thiamine in the grain. We demonstrate here that
thiamine, in addition to its nutritional value, induces systemic acquired resistance (SAR) in plants.
Thiamine-treated rice, Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), and vegetable crop plants showed resistance to fungal, bacterial, and
viral infections.
Thiamine treatment induces the transient expression of pathogenesis-related (PR) genes in rice and other plants. In addition,
thiamine treatment potentiates stronger and more rapid PR gene expression and the up-regulation of
protein kinase C activity. The effects of
thiamine on
disease resistance and defense-related gene expression mobilize systemically throughout the plant and last for more than 15 d
after treatment. Treatment of Arabidopsis ecotype Columbia-0 plants with
thiamine resulted in the activation of PR-1 but not PDF1.2. Furthermore,
thiamine prevented
bacterial infection in Arabidopsis mutants insensitive to
jasmonic acid or
ethylene but not in mutants impaired in the SAR transduction pathway. These results clearly demonstrate that
thiamine induces SAR in plants through the
salicylic acid and Ca(2+)-related signaling pathways. The findings provide a novel paradigm for developing alternative strategies for the control of plant diseases.