Skip to main content
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 #333804
Title: The conserved hypothetical protein PSPTO_3957 is essential for virulence in the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000

Author
item D'AMICO, KATHERINE - Former ARS Employee
item Filiatrault, Melanie

Submitted to: FEMS Microbiology Letters
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/9/2017
Publication Date: 4/25/2017
Citation: D'Amico, K., Filiatrault, M.J. 2017. The conserved hypothetical protein PSPTO_3957 is essential for virulence in the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000. FEMS Microbiology Letters. 364(8):fnx004 DOI: https://doi.gor/10.1093/femsle/fnx004.

Interpretive Summary: There are many genes and proteins that remain uncharacterized in bacteria. Characterizing these genes and proteins may shed new light on mechanisms used by bacteria to cause disease. Here we found that disruption of an uncharacterized gene (PSPTO_3957) in the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae does not impact growth in rich medium, cell attachment, or motility. However, we found that deletion of the gene PSPTO_3957 results in reduced growth and reduced symptoms in infected tomato plants compared to the wild-type strain. Our results indicate that PSPTO_3957 plays an important role in the ability of Pseudomonas syringae to cause disease, thus revealing a new virulence factor of P. syringae. Further work will be aimed at determining what specific biological processes the gene PSPTO_3957 impacts in this bacterium.

Technical Abstract: The plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae accounts for substantial crop losses and is considered an important agricultural issue. Although many genes involved in interactions of this pathogen with hosts have been identified and characterized, little is known about processes involving bacterial metabolism and how these functions impact pathogenesis. There are a substantial number of genes in sequenced bacterial genomes, including P. syringae,that encode for conserved hypothetical proteins. Some have been functionally characterized in other Pseudomonads and have been demonstrated to play important roles in disease. However, their role in other Pseudomonads is unknown. PSPTO_3957 encodes a conserved hypothetical protein of unknown function that is predicted to be a regulator of disulfide bond formation. To evaluate the role of PSPTO_3957 in P. syringae a PSPTO_3957 deletion mutant was constructed. Here we show that PSPTO_3957 does not influence growth, motility, or biofilm formation, but is necessary for full virulence in P. syringae pv tomato DC3000. Our results have revealed a role for PSPTO_3957 in the biology of P. syringae. Given the widespread occurrence of this protein, this protein might serve as an attractive target for disease management of bacterial plant pathogens.