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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Ithaca, New York » Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture & Health » Emerging Pests and Pathogens Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #318580
Title: The involvement of catabolite repression in the virulence of Pseudomonas syringae

Author
item Filiatrault, Melanie
item BUTCHER, BRONWYN - Cornell University
item D'Amico, Katherine
item CHAKRAVARTHY, SUMA - Cornell University
item FISHMAN, MAX - Cornell University
item Stodghill, Paul

Submitted to: ASM Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/20/2015
Publication Date: 9/2/2015
Citation: Filiatrault, M.J., Butcher, B., D'Amico, K.M., Chakravarthy, S., Fishman, M., Stodghill, P. 2015. The involvement of catabolite repression in the virulence of Pseudomonas syringae. ASM Conference. p. 44.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Pseudomonas syringae infects diverse plant species and is widely used as a model system in the study of effector function and the molecular basis of plant diseases. Although the relationship between bacterial metabolism, nutrient acquisition and virulence has attracted increasing attention in bacterial pathology, it is largely unexplored in P. syringae. The Crc (catabolite repression control) protein is a putative RNA-binding protein that regulates carbon metabolism as well as a number of other factors in the Pseudomonads. Here we show that disruption of the crc gene results in reduced fitness in tomato as well as Arabidopsis when compared to the wild-type strain. We have evidence that the crc mutant displays reduced Hypersensitivity response (HR) when infiltrated in to the non-hosts Nicotiana benthamiana and tobacco. Interestingly, the crc mutant was more susceptible to hydrogen peroxide suggesting that in planta the mutant may be sensitive to reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated during PAMP triggered immunity. Deletion of crc also increased swarming ability and biofilm formation. Further, we performed an in planta RNA-Seq experiment and analysis of the RNA-Seq data showed that small RNAs crcZ and crcX which modulate activity of Crc, are down regulated during infection. We conclude that Crc plays an important role in growth and survival during infection and that the down-regulation of the sRNAs is important to allow Crc to effectively modulate metabolic pathways important for virulence.