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Disease has an effect on crop yields, causing significant losses. As the worldwide demand for agricultural products increases, there is a need to pursue the development of new methods to protect crops from disease. One mechanism of plant protection is through the activation of the plant immune system. By exogenous application, ‘plant activator molecules’ with elicitor properties can be used to activate the plant immune system. These defence‐inducing molecules represent a powerful and often environmentally friendly tool to fight pathogens. We show that the secondary bile acid deoxycholic acid (DCA) induces defence in Arabidopsis and reduces the proliferation of two bacterial phytopathogens: Erwinia amylovora and Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato. We describe the global defence response triggered by this new plant activator in Arabidopsis at the transcriptional level. Several induced genes were selected for further analysis by quantitative reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction. We describe the kinetics of their induction and show that abiotic stress, such as moderate drought or nitrogen limitation, does not impede DCA induction of defence. Finally, we investigate the role in the activation of defence by this bile acid of the salicylic acid biosynthesis gene SID2, of the receptor‐like kinase family genes WAK1–3 and of the NADPH oxidase‐encoding RbohD gene. Altogether, we show that DCA constitutes a promising molecule for plant protection which can induce complementary lines of defence, such as callose deposition, reactive oxygen species accumulation and the jasmonic acid and salicylic acid signalling pathways.

MECA; The wall-associated kinases (WAKs) are a family of transmembrane proteins involved in pathogen responses and cell elongation in Arabidopsis. They belong to the major receptor-like kinase (RLK) family in plants. Given their architecture and connection to the cell wall, WAKs are thought to perceive and propagate extracellular signals. This study reports the characterization of the WAK family in a woody species based on the v3.0 genome assembly of Populus trichocarpa. In silico analysis revealed a total of 175 PtWAK sequences classified into four groups based on protein domains. Of the PtWAKs, 91.5 % were found in tandem-duplicated clusters contributing to the expansion of the family in poplar. Microarray and EST expression data mining revealed contrasting temporal and spatial expression patterns in stress treatments for several WAK members. The WAKs in poplar form the largest WAK family encountered to date in plants. The combination of phylogenetic and transcriptional data showed that members in nonexpanded clusters were mainly expressed in developmental processes, whereas PtWAKs that had evolved independently in a species-specific way were structured in clusters and were involved in resistance responses. This paper offers an overview of WAK family structure in P. trichocarpa, which will be useful for further functional analysis of the PtWAK family.