WRKY33 (At2g38470, Q8S8P5) curation notes

2026-10-02 initial review

Sources: UniProt record, GOA (40 rows), falcon deep research, cached papers (full text for PMID:21498677, 22392279, 30228125, 15990873, 21203436; others abstract-only).

Molecular function

• Group I WRKY TF, two WRKY domains; binds W-box. PMID:17059405
• EMSA specificity: PMID:21498677
• MPK3/MPK6 phosphorylate 5 N-terminal Ser; phosphorylation does not change DNA binding, likely affects transactivation. PMID:21498677
• SIB1/SIB2 (VQ) coactivators stimulate DNA binding. PMID:21990940
• MPK4-MKS1 holds WRKY33 in the nucleus until pathogen-triggered release. PMID:18650934

Camalexin (project curation question 3: necessity vs participation)

• WRKY33 binds PAD3 and CYP71A13 promoters. PMID:22392279
• But camalexin induction is only delayed in wrky33 in Birkenbihl et al. PMID:22392279
• The biosynthetic steps are catalysed by CYP71A13 and PAD3, not WRKY33, so the IMP "camalexin biosynthetic process" row is MODIFIED to GO:1901183 positive regulation of camalexin biosynthetic process (same choice as genes/ARATH/MPK3; CYP71B15 keeps the biosynthesis term as the enzyme).
• "defense response to fungus" accepted: robust IMP + overexpression phenotype, and WRKY33 does transcriptional work in the response beyond camalexin.

Other processes (non-core)

• Salt: moderate mutant phenotype PMID:18839316
• Heat: redundant with WRKY25/26; WRKY33 expression repressed by heat PMID:21336597
• SAR via ALD1 PMID:30228125
• Autophagy induction PMID:21395886
• Defense to bacterium: loss-of-function shows no change in Zheng 2006 PMID:17059405; kept as non-core given SAR data.

Protein binding rows

• SIB1 -> MODIFY to transcription coregulator binding (GO:0001221), demonstrated coactivator.
• MKS1 (x3), MPK4, ATG18a, VQ1, VQ10 -> REMOVE (uninformative; interactions not disputed).

Validation: passes with no warnings.