scholarly journals A Significantly High Abundance of “Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus” in Citrus Fruit Pith: in planta Transcriptome and Anatomical Analyses

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fang Fang ◽  
Hengyu Guo ◽  
Anmin Zhao ◽  
Tao Li ◽  
Huihong Liao ◽  
...  

Huanglongbing, a highly destructive disease of citrus, is associated with the non-culturable phloem-limited α-proteobacterium “Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus” (CLas). The distribution patterns of CLas in infected plant are variable and not consistent, which make the CLas detection and characterization more challenging. Here, we performed a systemic analysis of CLas distribution in citrus branches and fruits of 14 cultivars. A significantly high concentration of CLas was detected in fruit pith (dorsal vascular bundle) of 14 citrus cultivars collected at fruit maturity season. A 2-year monitoring assay of CLas population in citrus branches of “Shatangju” mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco “Shatangju”) revealed that CLas population already exhibited a high level even before the appearance of visual symptoms in the fruit rind. Quantitative analyses of CLas in serial 1.5-cm segments of fruit piths showed the CLas was unevenly distributed within fruit pith and tended to colonize in the middle or distal (stylar end) regions of pith. The use of CLas-abundant fruit pith for dual RNA-seq generated higher-resolution CLas transcriptome data compared with the leaf samples. CLas genes involved in transport system, flagellar assembly, lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis, virulence, stress response, and cell surface structure, as well as host genes involved in biosynthesis of antimicrobial-associated secondary metabolites, was up-regulated in leaf midribs compared with fruit pith. In addition, CLas infection caused the severe collapse in phloem and callose deposition in the plasmodesmata of fruit pith. The ability of fruit pith to support multiplication of CLas to high levels makes it an ideal host tissue for morphological studies and in planta transcriptome analyses of CLas–host interactions.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 295
Author(s):  
Yvann Bourigault ◽  
Andrea Chane ◽  
Corinne Barbey ◽  
Sylwia Jafra ◽  
Robert Czajkowski ◽  
...  

Promoter-probe vectors carrying fluorescent protein-reporter genes are powerful tools used to study microbial ecology, epidemiology, and etiology. In addition, they provide direct visual evidence of molecular interactions related to cell physiology and metabolism. Knowledge and advances carried out thanks to the construction of soft-rot Pectobacteriaceae biosensors, often inoculated in potato Solanum tuberosum, are discussed in this review. Under epifluorescence and confocal laser scanning microscopies, Dickeya and Pectobacterium-tagged strains managed to monitor in situ bacterial viability, microcolony and biofilm formation, and colonization of infected plant organs, as well as disease symptoms, such as cell-wall lysis and their suppression by biocontrol antagonists. The use of dual-colored reporters encoding the first fluorophore expressed from a constitutive promoter as a cell tag, while a second was used as a regulator-based reporter system, was also used to simultaneously visualize bacterial spread and activity. This revealed the chronology of events leading to tuber maceration and quorum-sensing communication, in addition to the disruption of the latter by biocontrol agents. The promising potential of these fluorescent biosensors should make it possible to apprehend other activities, such as subcellular localization of key proteins involved in bacterial virulence in planta, in the near future.


Nutrients ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 1305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arturo Pujia ◽  
Cristina Russo ◽  
Samantha Maurotti ◽  
Roberta Pujia ◽  
Vincenzo Mollace ◽  
...  

Epidemiological studies show that fruit consumption may modulate bone mineral density. However, data regarding the effect of the Citrus bergamia Risso (Bergamot orange), a citrus fruit containing a high concentration of flavonoids, on bone health are still lacking. In this study, we investigated the effects of Bergamot polyphenols on the Wnt/β-catenin pathway in two distinct bone cell types (Saos-2 and MG63). Findings showed that exposure to 0.01 and 0.1 mg/mL doses upregulate β-catenin expression (p = 0.001), osteoblast differentiation markers (e.g., RUNX2 and COL1A), and downregulate RANKL (p = 0.028), as compared to the control. Our results highlight, for the first time, that Bergamot polyphenols act on bone cells through the β-catenin pathway. In vivo studies are necessary to fully understand Bergamot’s role against bone resorption.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Vinicius Merfa e Silva ◽  
Eduarda Regina Fischer ◽  
Mariana de Souza e Silva ◽  
Carolina Sardinha Francisco ◽  
Helvécio Coletta-Filho ◽  
...  

Huanglongbing (HLB) is currently the most devastating disease of citrus worldwide. Both bacteria ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’ (CLas) and ‘Ca. Liberibacter americanus’ (CLam) are associated with HLB in Brazil, but with a strong prevalence of CLas over CLam. Conventionally, HLB management focuses on controlling the insect vector population (Diaphorina citri; also known as Asian citrus psyllid – ACP) by spraying insecticides, an approach demonstrated to be mostly ineffective. Thus, development of novel more efficient HLB control strategies is required. The multifunctional bacterial outer membrane protein OmpA is involved in several molecular processes between bacteria and their hosts and has been suggested as a target for bacterial control. Curiously, OmpA is absent in CLam in comparison to CLas, suggesting a possible role on host-interaction. Therefore, in the current study, we have treated ACPs with different OmpA-derived peptides aiming to evaluate the acquisition of CLas by the insect vector. Treatment of psyllids with 5 µM of Pep1, Pep3, Pep5 and Pep6 in artificial diet significantly reduced the acquisition of CLas, while increasing the concentration of Pep5 and Pep6 to 50 µM abolished this process. In addition, in planta treatment with 50 µM of Pep6 also significantly decreased the acquisition of CLas and sweet orange plants stably absorbed and maintained this peptide for as long as three months post the final application. Together, our results demonstrate the promising use of OmpA-derived peptides as a novel biotechnological tool to control CLas.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cameron Stephens ◽  
Travis W Gannon ◽  
Marc Cubeta ◽  
Tim L. Sit ◽  
Jim Kerns

Take-all root rot is a disease of ultradwarf bermudagrass putting greens caused by Gaeumannomyces graminis (Gg), Gaeumannomyces sp. (Gx), Gaeumannomyces graminicola (Ggram), Candidacolonium cynodontis (Cc), and Magnaporthiopsis cynodontis (Mc). Many etiological and epidemiological components of this disease remain unknown. Improving pathogen identification and our understanding of the aggressiveness of these pathogens along with growth at different temperatures will advance our knowledge of disease development to optimize management strategies. Take-all root rot pathogens were isolated from symptomatic bermudagrass root and stolon pieces from 16 different golf courses. Isolates of Gg, Gx, Ggram, Cc, and Mc were used to inoculate ‘Champion’ bermudagrass in an in planta aggressiveness assay. Each pathogen was also evaluated at 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, and 35C to determine growth temperature optima. Infected plant tissue was used to develop a real-time PCR high resolution melt assay for pathogen detection. This assay was able to differentiate each pathogen directly from infected plant tissue using a single primer pair. In general, Ggram, Gg, and Gx were the most aggressive while Cc and Mc exhibited moderate aggressiveness. Pathogens were more aggressive when incubated at 30C compared to 20C. While they grew optimally between 24.4 and 27.8C, pathogens exhibited limited growth at 35C and no growth at 10C. These data provide important information on this disease and its causal agents that may improve take-all root rot management.


2019 ◽  
Vol 109 (12) ◽  
pp. 2046-2054 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinyun Li ◽  
Zhiqian Pang ◽  
Shuo Duan ◽  
Donghwan Lee ◽  
Vladimir G. Kolbasov ◽  
...  

Huanglongbing (HLB) or greening currently is the most devastating citrus disease worldwide. The fastidious phloem-colonizing bacterium ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’ (CLas) is the causal agent of citrus HLB in Florida. Bactericides containing the active ingredient oxytetracycline (OTC) have been used in foliar spray to control citrus HLB in Florida since 2016. However, the minimum concentration of OTC required to suppress CLas in planta remains unknown. We developed a new method for evaluating the effects of OTC treatment on CLas titers in infected plants and determined the relationship between OTC residue levels and control levels achieved for CLas using mathematical modeling in greenhouse and field experiments. In both greenhouse and field, OTC spray did not reduce the titers of CLas, and it produced undetectable or mild levels of OTC residue in leaves within 7 days post-application (DPA). In greenhouse, OTC injection at 0.05 g per tree decreased CLas titers to an undetectable level (cycle threshold value ≥ 36.0) from 7 to 30 DPA and produced a residue level of OTC at 0.68 to 0.73 µg/g of fresh tissue over this period. In the field, OTC injection at 0.50 g per tree resulted in the decline of CLas titers by 1.52 log reduction from 14 to 60 DPA, with residue levels of OTC at 0.27 to 0.33 µg/g of fresh tissue. In both trials, a first-order compart model of OTC residue dynamics in leaves of trunk-injected trees was specified for estimating the retention of effective concentrations. Furthermore, nonlinear modeling revealed significant positive correlations between OTC residue levels in leaves and the control levels for CLas achieved. The results suggested that the minimum concentrations of OTC required to suppress CLas populations in planta to below the detection limit are 0.68 and 0.86 µg/g and that the minimum concentrations of OTC required for initial inhibition of CLas growth in planta are ∼0.17 and ∼0.215 µg/g in leaf tissues under greenhouse and field conditions, respectively. This finding highlights that a minimum concentration of OTC should be guaranteed to be delivered to target CLas in infected plants for effective control of citrus HLB.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (12) ◽  
pp. 1394-1404
Author(s):  
Kelley J. Clark ◽  
Zhiqian Pang ◽  
Jessica Trinh ◽  
Nian Wang ◽  
Wenbo Ma

Sec-delivered effector 1 (SDE1) from the huanglongbing (HLB)-associated bacterium ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’ was previously characterized as an inhibitor of defense-related, papain-like cysteine proteases in vitro and in planta. Here, we investigated the contributions of SDE1 to HLB progression. We found that SDE1 expression in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana caused severe yellowing in mature leaves, reminiscent of both ‘Ca. L. asiaticus’ infection symptoms and accelerated leaf senescence. Induction of senescence signatures was also observed in the SDE1-expressing A. thaliana lines. These signatures were apparent in older leaves but not in seedlings, suggesting an age-associated effect. Furthermore, independent lines of transgenic Citrus paradisi (L.) Macfadyen (Duncan grapefruit) that express SDE1 exhibited hypersusceptibility to ‘Ca. L. asiaticus’. Similar to A. thaliana, transgenic citrus expressing SDE1 showed altered expression of senescence-associated genes, but only after infection with ‘Ca. L. asiaticus’. These findings suggest that SDE1 is a virulence factor that contributes to HLB progression, likely by inducing premature or accelerated senescence in citrus. This work provides new insight into HLB pathogenesis. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license .


2008 ◽  
Vol 98 (5) ◽  
pp. 592-599 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satyanarayana Tatineni ◽  
Uma Shankar Sagaram ◽  
Siddarame Gowda ◽  
Cecile J. Robertson ◽  
William O. Dawson ◽  
...  

Huanglongbing (HLB) is one of the most devastating diseases of citrus worldwide, and is caused by a phloem-limited fastidious prokaryotic α-proteobacterium that is yet to be cultured. In this study, a combination of traditional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and real-time PCR targeting the putative DNA polymerase and 16S rDNA sequence of ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus,’ respectively, were used to examine the distribution and movement of the HLB pathogen in the infected citrus tree. We found that ‘Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus’ was distributed in bark tissue, leaf midrib, roots, and different floral and fruit parts, but not in endosperm and embryo, of infected citrus trees. Quantification analysis of the HLB bacterium indicated that it was distributed unevenly in planta and ranged from 14 to 137,031 cells/μg of total DNA in different tissues. A relatively high concentration of ‘Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus’ was observed in fruit peduncles. Our data from greenhouse-infected plants also indicated that ‘Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus’ was transmitted systemically from infection site to different parts of the plant. Understanding the distribution and movement of the HLB bacterium inside an individual citrus tree is critical for discerning its virulence mechanism and to develop management strategies for HLB.


2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 589-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freddy Ibanez ◽  
Lukasz L Stelinski

Abstract Huanglongbing, a highly destructive disease of citrus species, is associated with a fastidious, gram-negative, phloem-limited bacteria (Candidatus Liberibacter spp.). In Florida, the causative agent of Huanglongbing (HLB) is C. Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas) and it is transmitted by the insect vector, Asian citrus psyllid (Diaphorina citri Kuwayama). Previous investigations have revealed systemic infection of CLas with an erratic and uneven distribution of pathogen in tree phloem. However, previous investigations did not consider the potential impact of plant vegetative growth on presence/absence of CLas in planta. Our objectives were to determine: 1) the effect of vegetative growth of Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck cv Valencia on detection of CLas in mature leaves, and 2) the impact of CLas inoculation frequency on progression of CLas titer in citrus leaves through the first year of infection. Temporal dynamics of CLas detection were associated with vegetative flush growth. Surprisingly, there was no difference in CLas titer detected between plants exposed to infected vectors for a one-time 7 d inoculation access period, as compared with plants exposed to continuously breeding CLas-infected insects over the course of an entire year of plant infection. Our results suggest that the CLas bacterium is transported through phloem during annual movement of carbon compounds needed for vegetative plant growth, including transportation from roots to mature leaves. These results highlight the importance of vegetative growth on temporal dynamics of CLas in citrus, and suggest a critical role of the sink-source interaction on presence/absence of CLas in leaves.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chung Huy Nguyen ◽  
G. Andrew C. Beattie ◽  
Anthony M. Haigh ◽  
Inggit Puji Astuti ◽  
David J. Mabberley ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Orange jasmine has a complex nomenclatural history and is now known as Murraya paniculata (L.) Jack. Our interest in this common ornamental stemmed from the need to resolve its identity and the identities of closely related taxa as hosts of the pathogen ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’ and its vector Diaphorina citri. Understanding these microbe-vector-plant relationships has been hampered by taxonomic confusion surrounding Murraya at both the generic and specific levels. Results To resolve the taxonomic uncertainty, six regions of the maternally-inherited chloroplastal genome and part of the nuclear-encoded ITS region were amplified from 85 accessions of Murraya and Merrillia using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Clustering used maximum parsimony (MP), maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian inference (BI). Chronograms were produced for molecular dating, and to test the monophyly of Murraya rigorously, using selected accessions of Murraya and 26 accessions of the Rutaceae and Simarubaceae. Sequence data from the ITS and chloroplastal regions suggest that Murraya paniculata (sensu (Swingle WT and Reece CR, The Citrus Industry, p. 190–430, 1967)) can be separated into four distinct but morphologically somewhat cryptic taxa: Murraya paniculata (sensu (Mabberley DJ, Taxon 65:366–371, 2016)), M. elongata, M. sumatrana and M. lucida. In addition, Murraya omphalocarpa was identified as a putative hybrid of M. paniculata and M. lucida with two geographically isolated nothovarieties representing reciprocal crosses. Murraya is monophyletic, and molecular dating suggests that it diverged from Merrillia during the Miocene (23–5 Ma) with this Murraya group speciating and dispersing during the Middle Miocene onwards. Conclusions The accessions from Asia and Australasia used in this study grouped into biogeographical regions that match herbarium specimen records for the taxa that suggest natural allopatric distributions with limited overlap and hybridity. Murraya paniculata has been distributed around the world as an ornamental plant. The division of the Murraya paniculata complex into four species with a rare hybrid also confirms morphological studies.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 651-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgy Popov ◽  
Malou Fraiture ◽  
Frederic Brunner ◽  
Guido Sessa

Xanthomonas euvesicatoria is the causal agent of bacterial spot disease in pepper and tomato. X. euvesicatoria bacteria interfere with plant cellular processes by injecting effector proteins into host cells through the type III secretion (T3S) system. About 35 T3S effectors have been identified in X. euvesicatoria 85-10, and a few of them were implicated in suppression of pattern-triggered immunity (PTI). We used an Arabidopsis thaliana pathogen-free protoplast–based assay to identify X. euvesicatoria 85-10 effectors that interfere with PTI signaling induced by the bacterial peptide flg22. Of 33 tested effectors, 17 inhibited activation of a PTI-inducible promoter. Among them, nine effectors also interfered with activation of an abscisic acid–inducible promoter. However, effectors that inhibited flg22-induced signaling did not affect phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases acting downstream of flg22 perception. Further investigation of selected effectors revealed that XopAJ, XopE2, and XopF2 inhibited activation of a PTI-inducible promoter by the bacterial peptide elf18 in Arabidopsis protoplasts and by flg22 in tomato protoplasts. The effectors XopF2, XopE2, XopAP, XopAE, XopH, and XopAJ inhibited flg22-induced callose deposition in planta and enhanced disease symptoms caused by attenuated Pseudomonas syringae bacteria. Finally, selected effectors were found to localize to various plant subcellular compartments. These results indicate that X. euvesicatoria bacteria utilize multiple T3S effectors to suppress flg22-induced signaling acting downstream or in parallel to MAP kinase cascades and suggest they act through different molecular mechanisms.


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