Disease resistance in plants is commonly acti
vated by the product of an a
virulence (
Avr) geneof a pathogen after interaction with the product of a matching resistance (
R) gene in the host. In susceptibleplants,
Avr products might function as
virulence or pathogenicity factors. The AVR9 elicitor from thefungus
Cladosporium fulvum induces defense responses in tomato plants carrying the
Cf-9 resistancegene. This 28-residue
![](/images/gifchars/beta2.gif)
-sheet AVR9 peptide contains three disulfide bridges, which were identified inthis study as Cys2-Cys16, Cys6-Cys19, and Cys12-Cys26. For this purpose, AVR9 was partially reduced,and the thiol groups of newly formed cysteines were modified to pre
vent reactions with disulfides. AfterHPLC purification, the partially reduced peptides were sequenced to determine the positions of the modifiedcysteines, which originated from the reduced disulfide bridge(s). All steps in
vol
ving molecules with freethiol groups were performed at low pH to suppress disulfide scrambling. For that reason, cysteinemodification by
N-ethylmaleimide was preferred o
ver modification by iodoacetamide. Upon (partial)reduction of nati
ve AVR9, the Cys2-Cys16 bridge opened selecti
vely. The resulting molecule was furtherreduced to two one-bridge intermediates, which were subsequently completely reduced. The (partially)reduced cysteine-modified AVR9 species showed little or no necrosis-inducing acti
vity, demonstratingthe importance of the disulfide bridges for biological acti
vity. Based on peptide length and cysteine spacing,it was pre
viously suggested that AVR9 isa cystine-
knotted peptide. Now, we ha
ve pro
ven that the bridgingpattern of AVR9 is indeed identical to that of cystine-
knotted peptides. Moreo
ver, NMR data obtainedfor AVR9 show that it is structurally closely related to the cystine-
knotted carboxypeptidase inhibitor.Howe
ver, AVR9 does not show any carboxypeptidase inhibiting acti
vity, indicating that the cystine-knotfold is a commonly occurring motif with
varying biological functions.