Damage-associated

molecular patterns
(DAMPs)
a future plant vaccines that protect crops from pests

N A B I L A H A . S A M S U R I ZA L
 Background
 Pests cause 30–40% of yield loss in world wide (Oerke, 2006).

 The use of synthetic pesticides cause environmental pollution and pest organisms frequently evolve to become
resistant to pesticides.
 Alternative strategies have been developed that employ non-toxic compounds and natural plant traits for crop
protection.
 Vaccination of plants, using natural or synthetic molecules that act as resistance elicitors (they stimulate the
plant’s own immune system) is a concept that has received increasing interest over the last years (Shinya et al.,
2016)
 The most recently discovered category of elicitors are damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs),
endogenous indicators of injury.
 Damage-associated molecular
patterns (DAMPs)
 Damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) are molecules released upon cellular stress or tissue injury and are
regarded as endogenous danger signals, because they induce potent inflammatory responses by activating the innate immune
system during non-infectious inflammation.
 For example :

1. Nucleotides such as extracellular ATP in Arabidopsis thaliana (eATP) (Tanaka et al., 2014) and extracellular DNA
(eDNA) in Zea mays (Duran-Flores and Heil, 2017);

2. Saccharides such as Cellodextrins (derivatives of cell wall) in Vitis vinifera (Aziz et al. 2007)

3. Proteins and their fragments such as small signaling peptides (Yamaguchi et al., 2011).
 Besides the molecules that remain within the damaged tissue, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are released within
seconds from pre-existing molecules and they can activate immunity in distal parts of the same plant or in other plants, and
then act as DAMPs.
 Resistance induction by plant extracts: DAMPs as
the underlying principle
 Plant extracts appear to be an efficient tool in pest control which, in addition, can increase yield also by direct growth promotion
effects

For examples :

1. Leaf extract of devil´s trumpet elicited resistance in pearl millet to downy mildew caused by an oomycete (Devaiah et al., 2009)

2. Extract of Rheum palmatum roots and Frangula alnus bark protected grapevine leaves from infection with the oomycete
(Godard et al., 2009).

Plant extracts can be applied to seeds, seedlings or mature plants and that, due to their vaccine-like effects, a single treatment
often resulted sufficient to obtain a long-term resistance

The taxonomic diversity of extract sources and of plant enemies against which resistance was activated makes it tempting to
speculate that these effects are based, at least in part, on a general principle: the enhancement of plant resistance in response to
'damaged self recognition'
 Volatile organic compounds
(VOCs) as DAMPs
Mechanically, damaged plant tissues also emit multiple VOCs, for examples :

1. E-2-hexenal and other C-6-molecules that are collectively termed 'green leaf volatiles' are released
from pre-existing precursors within seconds after injury

2. The same remains true for methanol, which is released from cell wall components through the
action of pectin methylesterase

These compounds reliably indicate damage and indeed, methanol was suggested to act as a volatile
wound signal in plants (Dorokhov et al., 2012) and was found to induce the activation of MAPKs in
cells of tomato, as well as the grass tall fescue (Hann et al., 2014).
In Arabidopsis seedlings, exposure to E-2-hexenal induced  VOCs exert direct antimicrobial or insect-
resistance against the fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea repellent functions.
(Kishimoto et al., 2005).
For example :

The plant volatile (Z)-jasmone directly repels

several insect pests but also acts as a signal that
elicits several resistance-related responses in
bean and wheat (Moraes et al., 2008).
 A double function as signal and defense
compound has been suggested to be a common
feature of DAMPs, for which reason VOCs
also can be considered DAMPs.
 DAMPs as vaccines: practical
considerations
1. First, some commercial products based on plant extracts are already available.

2. Second, crude extracts have the additional advantage to be easy and fast to prepare and, thus, to
come at a low economic cost, which might make them the option of choice for the members of the
large world-wide community of low-income farmers and people who cultivate crops for
subsistence.

3. Third, due to the chemical diversity of DAMPs that occur in any plant extract, extracts can be
expected to trigger a more diverse array of resistance responses than any individual DAMP would
do, and leaf extracts might even contain compounds that exert direct, e.g. repellent or antimicrobial
effects.
 DAMPs as vaccines: practical
considerations
4. Plant extracts have to be prepared freshly immediately before their application, and they might
bear the risk of carrying pathogens that can infect the treated plant.

5. Purified DAMPs should cause more predictable effects, techniques for an automatic release should
be easier to develop for single compounds than for fresh leaf extracts, and a double function as
vaccine and direct antimicrobial compound has also been reported for certain pure DAMPs, in
particular VOCs and small wound-induced signaling peptides.

6. Most importantly, in all cases were the pests are confronted with DAMP-induced plant immunity
and direct defensive effects of DAMPs, the evolution of counter-resistances is much less likely
than in the case of pure synthetic pesticides or crops that carry a single resistance gene.
 Conclusions
 Being derived from completely natural sources, DAMPs are a safe tool, for the environment as well as for humans.

 DAMPs bear the potential to become broadly applicable vaccines in future crop protection strategies, independently of
whether they are applied as crude extracts or as purified molecules.
 There are no guarantees of any successful, large-scale application of DAMPs in 'the real world', with the exception of the
likely general contribution of VOCs to the success of intercropping and the specific use of VOCs in the push-pull strategy.

 The successful use of DAMPs will depend on reliable predictions concerning the effects of certain DAMPs, with respect
to both the crops to be considered and the targeted pests; predictions that must be based on a deeper understanding of the
molecular mechanisms that underlie the observed resistance effects.

 Detailed studies under agronomically realistic conditions will be needed to determine the specific blends, concentrations
and times of application of purified DAMPs, or plant extracts, which are required to optimize the resistance effects.
 References
• Oerke, E.C., 2006. Crop losses to pests. J. Agric. Sci. 144, 31–43. Ohm, J.R., Miller, T.E.X., 2014. Balancing anti-herbivore
benefits and anti-pollinator costs of defensive mutualists. Ecology 95, 2924–2935. Elizabeth Quintana-Rodriguez, Dalia Duran-
Flores , Martin Heil, Xicotencatl Camacho-Coronel. Damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) as future plant vaccines that
protect crops from pests. Scientia Horticulturae 237 (2018) 207–220.

• Shinya, T., Hojo, Y., Desaki, Y., Christeller, J.T., Okada, K., Shibuya, N., Galis, I., 2016. Modulation of plant defense responses to
herbivores by simultaneous recognition of different herbivore-associated elicitors in rice. Sci. Rep. 6, 32537.

• Tanaka, K., Choi, J., Cao, Y., Stacey, G., 2014. Extracellular ATP acts as a damage-asso ciated molecular pattern (DAMP) signal
in plants. Front. Plant Sci. 5, 446.

• Duran-Flores, D., Heil, M., 2017. Extracellular self-DNA as a damage-associated molecular pattern (DAMP) that triggers self-
specific immunity induction in plants. Brain Behav. Immun In Press.

• Aziz, A., Gauthier, A., Bézier, A., Poinssot, B., Joubert, J.-M., Pugin, A., Heyraud, A., Baillieul, F., 2007. Elicitor and resistance-
inducing activities of β-1,4 cellodextrins in grapevine, comparison with β-1,3 glucans and α-1,4 oligogalacturonides. J. Exp. Bot.
58, 1463–1472.

• Yamaguchi, Y., Barona, G., Ryan, C.A., Pearce, G., 2011. GmPep914, an eight-amino acid peptide isolated from soybean leaves,
activates defense-related genes. Plant Physiol. 156, 932–942.
References
Devaiah, S.P., Mahadevappa, G.H., Shetty, H.S., 2009. Induction of systemic resistance in pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) against downy
mildew (Sclerospora graminicola) by Datura metel extract. Crop Prot. 28, 783–791.

Chen GY, Nuñez G. Sterile inflammation: sensing and reacting to damage. Nat Rev Immunol. 2010;10:826–837. [PMC free article]
[PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Vénéreau E, Ceriotti C, Bianchi ME. DAMPs from cell death to new life. Front Immunol. 2015;6:422. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google
Scholar]

Moraes, M.C.B., Birkett, M.A., Gordon-Weeks, R., Smart, L.E., Martin, J.L., Pye, B.J., Bromilow, R., Pickett, J.A., 2008. cis-Jasmone
induces accumulation of defence compounds in wheat, Triticum aestivum. Phytochemistry 69, 9–17.

Hann, C.T., Bequette, C.J., Dombrowski, J.E., Stratmann, J.W., 2014. Methanol and ethanol modulate responses to danger- and microbe-
associated molecular patterns. Front. Plant Sci. 5, 550.

Dorokhov, Y.L., 2014. Cell wall methanol as a signal in plant immunity. Front. Plant Sci. 5, 101. Kost, C., Heil, M., 2006. Herbivore ‐induced
plant volatiles induce an indirect defence in neighbouring plants. J. Ecol. 94, 619–628.

Godard, J.-F., Ziadi, S.L., Monot, C., Le Corre, D., Silué, D., 1999. Benzothiadiazole (BTH) induces resistance in cauliflower (Brassica
oleracea var botrytis) to downy mildew of crucifers caused by Peronospora parasitica. Crop Prot. 18, 397–405.
THANK YOU