Deciphering the mode of action and host recognition of bacterial type III effectors
Selena Gimenez-Ibanez A , Dagmar R. Hann B and John P. Rathjen C DA Departamento de Genética Molecular de Plantas, Centro Nacional de Biotecnología-CSIC, Campus Universidad Autónoma, 28049 Madrid, Spain.
B Botanical Institute, University of Basel, Section of Plant Physiology, Hebelstrasse 1, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland.
C Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, RN Robertson Building, Biology Place, Acton, ACT 0200, Australia.
D Corresponding author. Email: john.rathjen@anu.edu.au
Functional Plant Biology 37(10) 926-932 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP10085
Submitted: 16 April 2010 Accepted: 8 July 2010 Published: 23 September 2010
Abstract
Plant pathogenic bacteria adhere to cell walls and remain external to the cell throughout the pathogenic lifecycle, where they elicit host immunity through host plasma membrane localised receptors. To be successful pathogens, bacteria must suppress these defence responses, which they do by secreting a suite of virulence effector molecules into the host cytoplasm. However, effectors themselves can act as elicitors after perception by intracellular host immune receptors, thus, re-activating plant immunity. Bacterial effectors generally target host molecules through specific molecular activities to defeat plant defence responses. Although effectors can be used as tools to elucidate components of plant immunity, only a handful of these molecular targets are known and much remains to be learnt about effector strategies for bacterial pathogenicity. This review highlights recent advances in our understanding of the mode of action of bacterial effectors, which in the future will lead to improvements in agriculture.
Additional keywords: bacteria, defense, effector, NB-LRR, plant immunity, PRR.
Acknowledgements
We apologise to those authors whose work could not be cited owing to space limitations. SGI is funded by the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS). DRH is funded by the Suisse National Science foundation and the Suisse Initiative in Systems Biology (SystemsX: Plant growth in a changing environment). JPR is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow (FT0992129).
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