1. Dynamic expression of Ralstonia solanacearum virulence factors and metabolism-controlling genes during plant infection
- Author
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J S Monteiro, Alberto P. Macho, Marina Puigvert, R de Pedro-Jové, Núria S. Coll, Marc Valls, Pau Sebastià, João C. Setubal, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (España), Agencia Estatal de Investigación (España), Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España), Generalitat de Catalunya, Fundación 'la Caixa', European Commission, Universidad de Barcelona, Conselho Nacional das Fundaçôes Estaduais de Amparo à Pesquisa (Brasil), Fundações de Amparo à Pesquisa (Brasil), and Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Subjects
0106 biological sciences ,Metabolisme de les plantes ,Dynamic gene expression ,01 natural sciences ,Type three secretion system ,Virulence (Microbiology) ,Apoplast ,Solanum lycopersicum ,Xilema ,Pathogen ,Genetics ,0303 health sciences ,Ralstonia solanacearum ,biology ,Virulence ,Virulence factors ,Bacterial wilt ,food and beverages ,RNAseq ,Plant disease ,Research Article ,Biotechnology ,lcsh:QH426-470 ,Virulence Factors ,lcsh:Biotechnology ,Virulència (Microbiologia) ,03 medical and health sciences ,Xylem ,lcsh:TP248.13-248.65 ,Plant metabolism ,Gene ,030304 developmental biology ,Plant Diseases ,fungi ,biochemical phenomena, metabolism, and nutrition ,biology.organism_classification ,Effectors ,Expressió gènica ,T3SS ,lcsh:Genetics ,Metabolism ,RNA ,SEQUENCIAMENTO GENÉTICO ,Gene expression ,010606 plant biology & botany - Abstract
[Background]: Ralstonia solanacearum is the causal agent of bacterial wilt, a devastating plant disease responsible for serious economic losses especially on potato, tomato, and other solanaceous plant species in temperate countries. In R. solanacearum, gene expression analysis has been key to unravel many virulence determinants as well as their regulatory networks. However, most of these assays have been performed using either bacteria grown in minimal medium or in planta, after symptom onset, which occurs at late stages of colonization. Thus, little is known about the genetic program that coordinates virulence gene expression and metabolic adaptation along the different stages of plant infection by R. solanacearum., [Results]: We performed an RNA-sequencing analysis of the transcriptome of bacteria recovered from potato apoplast and from the xylem of asymptomatic or wilted potato plants, which correspond to three different conditions (Apoplast, Early and Late xylem). Our results show dynamic expression of metabolism-controlling genes and virulence factors during parasitic growth inside the plant. Flagellar motility genes were especially up-regulated in the apoplast and twitching motility genes showed a more sustained expression in planta regardless of the condition. Xylem-induced genes included virulence genes, such as the type III secretion system (T3SS) and most of its related effectors and nitrogen utilisation genes. The upstream regulators of the T3SS were exclusively up-regulated in the apoplast, preceding the induction of their downstream targets. Finally, a large subset of genes involved in central metabolism was exclusively down-regulated in the xylem at late infection stages., [Conclusions]: This is the first report describing R. solanacearum dynamic transcriptional changes within the plant during infection. Our data define four main genetic programmes that define gene pathogen physiology during plant colonisation. The described expression of virulence genes, which might reflect bacterial states in different infection stages, provides key information on the R. solanacearum potato infection process., This work was funded by project PID2019-108595RB-I00 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. We also acknowledge financial support from the “Severo Ochoa Program for Centres of Excellence in R&D” 2016–2019 (SEV-2015-0533) and the CERCA Program of the Catalan Government (Generalitat de Catalunya). R. de Pedro-Jové received FI and FPU fellowships from Generalitat de Catalunya and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. P. Sebastià received the support of a fellowship (code is LCF/BQ/IN17/11620004) from la Caixa Foundation (identifier [ID] 100010434). This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 713673. M. Puigvert received an APIF doctoral fellowship from Universitat de Barcelona and travel fellowship funded by Fundació Montcelimar and Universitat de Barcelona to carry out a short stay in J.C. Setubal’s lab. J.C. Setubal holds a CNPq senior researcher fellowship. J.S. Monteiro is funded by a FAPESP doctoral fellowship under process number 2019/05287–2. A.P. Macho is funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese 1000 Talents Program.
- Published
- 2021