Faculty Opinions recommendation of Identification of Pseudomonas syringae type III effectors that can suppress programmed cell death in plants and yeast.

Author(s):  
John W Mansfield
2004 ◽  
Vol 17 (12) ◽  
pp. 1328-1336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Kang ◽  
Xiaoyan Tang ◽  
Kirankumar S. Mysore

Many gram-negative bacterial pathogens rely on a type III secretion system to deliver a number of effector proteins into the host cell. Though a number of these effectors have been shown to contribute to bacterial pathogenicity, their functions remain elusive. Here we report that AvrPto, an effector known for its ability to interact with Pto and induce Pto-mediated disease resistance, inhibited the hypersensitive response (HR) induced by nonhost pathogen interactions. Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato T1 causes an HR-like cell death on Nicotiana benthamiana. This rapid cell death was delayed significantly in plants inoculated with P. syringae pv. tomato expressing avrPto. In addition, P. syringae pv. tabaci expressing avrPto suppressed nonhost HR on tomato prf3 and ptoS lines. Transient expression of avrPto in both N. benthamiana and tomato prf3 plants also was able to suppress nonhost HR. Interestingly, AvrPto failed to suppress cell death caused by other elicitors and nonhost pathogens. AvrPto also failed to suppress cell death caused by certain gene-for-gene disease resistance interactions. Experiments with avrPto mutants revealed several residues important for the suppression effects. AvrPto mutants G2A, G99V, P146L, and a 12-amino-acid C-terminal deletion mutant partially lost the suppression ability, whereas S94P and I96T enhanced suppression of cell death in N. benthamiana. These results, together with other discoveries, demonstrated that suppression of host-programmed cell death may serve as one of the strategies bacterial pathoens use for successful invasion.


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huanbin Zhou ◽  
Robyn L. Morgan ◽  
David S. Guttman ◽  
Wenbo Ma

The bacterial plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae depends on the type III secretion system and type III-secreted effectors to cause disease in plants. HopZ is a diverse family of type III effectors widely distributed in P. syringae isolates. Among the HopZ homologs, HopZ1 is ancient to P. syringae and has been shown to be under strong positive selection driven by plant resistance-imposed selective pressure. Here, we characterized the virulence and avirulence functions of the three HopZ1 alleles in soybean and Nicotiana benthamiana. In soybean, HopZ1 alleles have distinct functions: HopZ1a triggers defense response, HopZ1b promotes bacterial growth, and HopZ1c has no observable effect. In N. benthamiana, HopZ1a and HopZ1b both induce plant defense responses. However, they appear to trigger different resistance pathways, evidenced by two major differences between HopZ1a- and HopZ1b-triggered hypersensitive response (HR): i) the putative N-acylation sites had no effect on HopZ1a-triggered cell death, whereas it greatly enhanced HopZ1b-triggered cell death; and ii) the HopZ1b-triggered HR, but not the HopZ1a-triggered HR, was suppressed by another HopZ homolog, HopZ3. We previously demonstrated that HopZ1a most resembled the ancestral allelic form of HopZ1; therefore, this new evidence suggested that differentiated resistance systems have evolved in plant hosts to adapt to HopZ1 diversification in P. syringae.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A Baltrus ◽  
Qian Feng ◽  
Brian H Kvitko

Integrative Conjugative Elements (ICEs) are replicons that can insert and excise from chromosomal locations in a site specific manner, can conjugate across strains, and which often carry a variety of genes useful for bacterial growth and survival under specific conditions. Although ICEs have been identified and vetted within certain clades of the agricultural pathogen Pseudomonas syringae, the impact of ICE carriage and transfer across the entire P. syringae species complex remains underexplored. Here we identify and vet an ICE (PmaICE-DQ) from P. syringae pv. maculicola ES4326, a strain commonly used for laboratory virulence experiments, demonstrate that this element can excise and conjugate across strains, and contains loci encoding multiple type III effector proteins. Moreover, genome context suggests that another ICE (PmaICE-AOAB) is highly similar in comparison with and found immediately adjacent to PmaICE-DQ within the chromosome of strain ES4326, and also contains multiple type III effectors. Lastly, we present passage data from in planta experiments that suggests that genomic plasticity associated with ICEs may enable strains to more rapidly lose type III effectors that trigger R-gene mediated resistance in comparison to strains where nearly isogenic effectors are not present in ICEs. Taken together, our study sheds light on a set of ICE elements from P. syringae pv. maculicola ES4326 and highlights how genomic context may lead to different evolutionary dynamics for shared virulence genes between strains.


Plant Disease ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa A. Jones ◽  
Surya Saha ◽  
Alan Collmer ◽  
Christine D. Smart ◽  
Magdalen Lindeberg

A severe outbreak of bacterial speck of tomato, caused by Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato, occurred in central New York in 2009. Isolate 09150, collected from this outbreak and subsequently named NYS-T1, was found to be highly virulent on tomato. To better understand the relationship of 09150 to other P. syringae strains and develop a diagnostic assay for aggressive strains of this pathogen, the 09150 genome was sequenced. Genome comparison revealed it to be highly similar to a previously sequenced isolate, T1. Genetic factors linked to host interaction including type III effectors, toxin biosynthetic genes, and elicitors of host innate immunity were identified. Type III effector repertoires were compared with other strains in the high virulence T1-like subgroup and lower virulence DC3000/P. syringae pv. maculicola subgroup within P. syringae phylogenetic Group I. Primers for conventional PCR were developed using sequences for avrA, hopW, conserved in the former subgroup and hopN, present in the latter. These were tested on isolates in the two subgroups, other pseudomonads, and other bacterial pathogens of tomato. Primers developed for avaA and hopW were diagnostic for more virulent strains of P. syringae pv. tomato while primers for hopN were diagnostic for P. syringae pv. tomato DC3000 and related P. syringe pv. maculicola strains. Primers designed against hopR distinguished both of these P. syringae subgroups from other P. syringae strains.


2004 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maren Krause ◽  
Jörg Durner

Harpin is a well-known proteinaceous bacterial elicitor that can induce an oxidative burst and programmed cell death in various host plants. Given the demonstrated roles of mitochondria in animal apoptosis, we investigated the effect of harpin from Pseudomonas syringae on mitochondrial functions in Arabidopsis suspension cells in detail. Fluorescence microscopy in conjunction with double-staining for reactive oxygen species (ROS) and mitochondria suggested co-localization of mitochondria and ROS generation. Plant defense responses or cell death after pathogen attack have been suggested to be regulated by the concerted action of ROS and nitric oxide (NO). However, although Arabidopsis cells respond to harpin treatment with NO generation, time course analyses suggest that NO generation is not involved in initial responses but, rather, is a consequence of cellular decay. Among the fast responses we observed was a decrease of the mitochondrial membrane potential Δψm and, possibly as a direct consequence, of ATP production. Furthermore, treatment of Arabidopsis cells with harpin protein induced a rapid cytochrome C release from mitochondria into the cytosol, which is regarded as a hallmark of programmed cell death or apoptosis. Northern and DNA array analyses showed strong induction of protecting or scavenging systems such as alternative oxidase and small heat shock proteins, components that are known to be associated with cellular stress responses. In sum, the presented data suggest that harpin inactivates mitochondria in Arabidopsis cells.


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (7) ◽  
pp. 941-953 ◽  
Author(s):  
Montserrat Solé ◽  
Crina Popa ◽  
Oriane Mith ◽  
Kee Hoon Sohn ◽  
Jonathan D. G. Jones ◽  
...  

We present here the characterization of a new gene family, awr, found in all sequenced Ralstonia solanacearum strains and in other bacterial pathogens. We demonstrate that the five paralogues in strain GMI1000 encode type III-secreted effectors and that deletion of all awr genes severely impairs its capacity to multiply in natural host plants. Complementation studies show that the AWR (alanine-tryptophan-arginine tryad) effectors display some functional redundancy, although AWR2 is the major contributor to virulence. In contrast, the strain devoid of all awr genes (Δawr1-5) exhibits enhanced pathogenicity on Arabidopsis plants. A gain-of-function approach expressing AWR in Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 proves that this is likely due to effector recognition, because AWR5 and AWR4 restrict growth of this bacterium in Arabidopsis. Transient overexpression of AWR in nonhost tobacco species caused macroscopic cell death to varying extents, which, in the case of AWR5, shows characteristics of a typical hypersensitive response. Our work demonstrates that AWR, which show no similarity to any protein with known function, can specify either virulence or avirulence in the interaction of R. solanacearum with its plant hosts.


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