Regulation of corA, the Magnesium, Nickel, Cobalt Transporter, and Its Role in the Virulence of the Soft Rot Pathogen, Pectobacterium versatile Strain Ecc71

Pectobacterium versatile (formally P. carotovorum) causes disease on diverse plant species by synthesizing and secreting copious amount of plant-cell-wall-degrading exoenzymes including pectate lyases, polygalacturonases, cellulases, proteases. Exoenzyme production virulence are controlled many factors bacterial, host, environmental origin. The ion channel forming the magnesium, nickel, cobalt transporter CorA is required for exoenzyme full in strain Ecc71. We investigated CorA’s role as a factor its expression versatile. Inhibiting transport function growing CorA+ presence specific inhibitor, (III) hexaammine (Co (III)Hex), has no effect production. Transcription pel-1, encoding lyase isozyme, decreased absence CorA, suggesting that influences at transcriptional level, although apparently not through function. CorA− strains grown Co (III)Hex transcriptionally express corA higher levels than an contributes to autorepression. about four-fold lower HrpL− lacking hrp-specific extracytoplasmic sigma factor. promoter region contains sequence with high similarity consensus Hrp box, part regulon. Our data suggest complex role, possibly requiring physical protein