Towards a temporal modeling of the genetic network controlling Systemic Acquired Resistance in Arabidopsis thaliana

We studied defense mechanism of the Arabidopsis thaliana subjected to Salicylic Acid (SA) treatment for 0, 1, and 8 hours using a broader application of the frequent itemset approach. Four genotypes of the plant were used in this study, Columbia wild type, mutant npr1-3, double mutant tga1 tga4 and triple mutant tga2 tga5 tga6. We defined the major patterns of transcription regulation governing pathogen defense mechanism, thereby creating a model of the Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR) at three time points. The temporal model describes the relationships among the regulators and defines groups of genes that are subject to similar regulation. The results obtained offered a first glimpse into the temporal pattern of the transcription regulatory network during SAR in Arabidopsis thaliana. We found that most of the genes that responded to SA challenge are in fact dependent on one or more of the NPR1 and TGA factors tested in this study.