The model pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 causes bacterial speck in tomato and Arabidopsis, but Nicotiana benthamiana, an important model plant, is considered to be a non-host. Strain DC3000 injects approximately 28 effector proteins into plant cells via the type III secretion system (T3SS). These proteins were individually delivered into N. benthamiana leaf cells via T3SS-profi...

Previously, we conducted a mutant screen of Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato strain DC3000 to identify genes that contribute to virulence on Arabidopsis thaliana plants. Here we describe the characterization of one mutant strain, DB4H2, which contains a single Tn5 insertion in PSPTO3576, an open reading frame that is predicted to encode a protein belonging to the TetR family of transcriptional r...

Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 (PtoDC3000) is an extracellular model plant pathogen, yet its potential to produce secreted effectors that manipulate the apoplast has been under investigated. Here we identified 131 candidate small, secreted, non-annotated proteins from the PtoDC3000 genome, most of which are common to Pseudomonas species and potentially expressed during apoplastic coloni...

Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato strain DC3000, a pathogen of tomato and Arabidopsis, occurs as an epiphyte. It produces N-acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs) which apparently function as quorum-sensing signals. A Tn5 insertion mutant of DC3000, designated PsrA(-) (Psr is for Pseudomonas sigma regulator), overexpresses psyR (a LuxR-type regulator of psyI) and psyI (the gene for AHL synthase), and it...

Different forms of nitrogen (N) fertilizer affect disease development; however, this study investigated the effects of N forms on the hypersensitivity response (HR)-a pathogen-elicited cell death linked to resistance. HR-eliciting Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola was infiltrated into leaves of tobacco fed with either NO₃⁻ or NH₄⁺. The speed of cell death was faster in NO₃⁻-fed compared wit...

Many bacterial pathogens of plants and animals use a type III secretion system (TTSS) to deliver virulence effector proteins into host cells. Because effectors are heterogeneous in sequence and function, there has not been a systematic way to identify the genes encoding them in pathogen genomes, and our current inventories are probably incomplete. A pre-closure draft sequence of Pseudomonas syr...

Expression of the strA-strB streptomycin resistance (SMr) genes was examined in Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae and Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria. The strA-strB genes in P. syringae and X. campestris were encoded on elements closely related to Tn5393 from Erwinia amylovora and designated Tn5393a and Tn5393b, respectively. The putative recombination site (res) and resolvase-repressor ...

We developed a model system to study the signal transduction pathways leading to the activation of Arabidopsis thaliana genes involved in the defense against pathogen attack. Here we describe the identification and characterization of virulent and avirulent Pseudomonas syringae strains that elicit disease or resistance symptoms when infiltrated into Arabidopsis leaves. The virulent and avirulen...

• The mechanisms by which plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) mediate induced systemic resistance are currently being intensively investigated from the viewpoint of signal transduction pathways within plants. • Here, we determined whether our well-characterized PGPR strains, which have demonstrated induced resistance on various plants, also elicit induced resistance in Arabidopsis thali...