Pseudomonas syringae exchangeable effector loci: sequence diversity in representative pathovars and virulence function in P. syringae pv. syringae B728a.

Pseudomonas syringae is a plant pathogen whose pathogenicity and host specificity are thought to be determined by Hop/Avr effector proteins injected into plant cells by a type III secretion system. P. syringae pv. syringae B728a, which causes brown spot of bean, is a particularly well-studied strain. The type III secretion system in P. syringae is encoded by hrp (hypersensitive response and pathogenicity) and hrc (hrp conserved) genes, which are clustered in a pathogenicity island with a tripartite structure such that the hrp/hrc genes are flanked by a conserved effector locus and an exchangeable effector locus (EEL). The EELs of P. syringae pv. syringae B728a, P. syringae strain 61, and P. syringae pv. tomato DC3000 differ in size and effector gene composition; the EEL of P. syringae pv. syringae B728a is the largest and most complex. The three putative effector proteins encoded by the P. syringae pv. syringae B728a EEL--HopPsyC, HopPsyE, and HopPsyV--were demonstrated to be secreted in an Hrp-dependent manner in culture. Heterologous expression of hopPsyC, hopPsyE, and hopPsyV in P. syringae pv. tabaci induced the hypersensitive response in tobacco leaves, demonstrating avirulence activity in a nonhost plant. Deletion of the P. syringae pv. syringae B728a EEL strongly reduced virulence in host bean leaves. EELs from nine additional strains representing nine P. syringae pathovars were isolated and sequenced. Homologs of avrPphE (e.g., hopPsyE) and hopPsyA were particularly common. Comparative analyses of these effector genes and hrpK (which flanks the EEL) suggest that the EEL effector genes were acquired by horizontal transfer after the acquisition of the hrp/hrc gene cluster but before the divergence of modern pathovars and that some EELs underwent transpositions yielding effector exchanges or point mutations producing effector pseudogenes after their acquisition.

Genomewide identification of Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 promoters controlled by the HrpL alternative sigma factor.

The ability of Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 to parasitize tomato and Arabidopsis thaliana depends on genes activated by the HrpL alternative sigma factor. To support various functional genomic analyses of DC3000, and specifically, to identify genes involved in pathogenesis, we developed a draft sequence of DC3000 and used an iterative process involving computational and gene expression techniques to identify virulence-implicated genes downstream of HrpL-responsive promoters. Hypersensitive response and pathogenicity (Hrp) promoters are known to control genes encoding the Hrp (type III protein secretion) machinery and a few type III effector proteins in DC3000. This process involved (i) identification of 9 new virulence-implicated genes in the Hrp regulon by miniTn5gus mutagenesis, (ii) development of a hidden Markov model (HMM) trained with known and transposon-identified Hrp promoter sequences, (iii) HMM identification of promoters upstream of 12 additional virulence-implicated genes, and (iv) microarray and RNA blot analyses of the HrpL-dependent expression of a representative subset of these DC3000 genes. We found that the Hrp regulon encodes candidates for 4 additional type III secretion machinery accessory factors, homologs of the effector proteins HopPsyA, AvrPpiB1 (2 copies), AvrPpiC2, AvrPphD (2 copies), AvrPphE, AvrPphF, and AvrXv3, and genes associated with the production or metabolism of virulence factors unrelated to the Hrp type III secretion system, including syringomycin synthetase (SyrE), N(epsilon)-(indole-3-acetyl)-l-lysine synthetase (IaaL), and a subsidiary regulon controlling coronatine production. Additional candidate effector genes, hopPtoA2, hopPtoB2, and an avrRps4 homolog, were preceded by Hrp promoter-like sequences, but these had HMM expectation values of relatively low significance and were not detectably activated by HrpL.