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Necessity of OxyR for the hydrogen peroxide stress response and full virulence in Ralstonia solanacearum.

ABSTRACT: The plant pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum, which causes bacterial wilt disease, is exposed to reactive oxygen species (ROS) during tomato infection and expresses diverse oxidative stress response (OSR) genes during midstage disease on tomato. The R. solanacearum genome predicts that the bacterium produces multiple and redundant ROS-scavenging enzymes but only one known oxidative stress response regulator, OxyR. An R. solanacearum oxyR mutant had no detectable catalase activity, did not grow in the presence of 250 ?M hydrogen peroxide, and grew poorly in the oxidative environment of solid rich media. This phenotype was rescued by the addition of exogenous catalase, suggesting that oxyR is essential for the hydrogen peroxide stress response. Unexpectedly, the oxyR mutant strain grew better than the wild type in the presence of the superoxide generator paraquat. Gene expression studies indicated that katE, kaG, ahpC1, grxC, and oxyR itself were each differentially expressed in the oxyR mutant background and in response to hydrogen peroxide, suggesting that oxyR is necessary for hydrogen peroxide-inducible gene expression. Additional OSR genes were differentially regulated in response to hydrogen peroxide alone. The virulence of the oxyR mutant strain was significantly reduced in both tomato and tobacco host plants, demonstrating that R. solanacearum is exposed to inhibitory concentrations of ROS in planta and that OxyR-mediated responses to ROS during plant pathogenesis are important for R. solanacearum host adaptation and virulence.

SUBMITTER: Flores-Cruz Z

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3187169 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Necessity of OxyR for the hydrogen peroxide stress response and full virulence in Ralstonia solanacearum.

Flores-Cruz Zomary Z Allen Caitilyn C

Applied and environmental microbiology 20110729 18

The plant pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum, which causes bacterial wilt disease, is exposed to reactive oxygen species (ROS) during tomato infection and expresses diverse oxidative stress response (OSR) genes during midstage disease on tomato. The R. solanacearum genome predicts that the bacterium produces multiple and redundant ROS-scavenging enzymes but only one known oxidative stress response regulator, OxyR. An R. solanacearum oxyR mutant had no detectable catalase activity, did not grow in t ...[more]

PMID: 21803891

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Project description:Ralstonia solanacearum, a widely distributed and economically important plant pathogen, invades the roots of diverse plant hosts from the soil and aggressively colonizes the xylem vessels, causing a lethal wilting known as bacterial wilt disease. By examining bacteria from the xylem vessels of infected plants, we found that R. solanacearum is essentially nonmotile in planta, although it can be highly motile in culture. To determine the role of pathogen motility in this disease, we cloned, characterized, and mutated two genes in the R. solanacearum flagellar biosynthetic pathway. The genes for flagellin, the subunit of the flagellar filament (fliC), and for the flagellar motor switch protein (fliM) were isolated based on their resemblance to these proteins in other bacteria. As is typical for flagellins, the predicted FliC protein had well-conserved N- and C-terminal regions, separated by a divergent central domain. The predicted R. solanacearum FliM closely resembled motor switch proteins from other proteobacteria. Chromosomal mutants lacking fliC or fliM were created by replacing the genes with marked interrupted constructs. Since fliM is embedded in the fliLMNOPQR operon, the aphA cassette was used to make a nonpolar fliM mutation. Both mutants were completely nonmotile on soft agar plates, in minimal broth, and in tomato plants. The fliC mutant lacked flagella altogether; moreover, sheared-cell protein preparations from the fliC mutant lacked a 30-kDa band corresponding to flagellin. The fliM mutant was usually aflagellate, but about 10% of cells had abnormal truncated flagella. In a biologically representative soil-soak inoculation virulence assay, both nonmotile mutants were significantly reduced in the ability to cause disease on tomato plants. However, the fliC mutant had wild-type virulence when it was inoculated directly onto cut tomato petioles, an inoculation method that did not require bacteria to enter the intact host from the soil. These results suggest that swimming motility makes its most important contribution to bacterial wilt virulence in the early stages of host plant invasion and colonization.

Project description:As one of the most notorious and successful phytopathogenic bacteria, Ralstonia solanacearum controls the transition between long-term survival and pathogenic modes through an intricate regulatory network, the understanding of which remains incomplete despite years of effort. In this study, we identified PhcX, a previously uncharacterized response regulator in R. solanacearum, and uncovered its essential functions in modulating virulence and metabolism. The phcX deletion mutant exhibited substantial phenotypic alterations, including slower initial growth, altered response to host extract, reduced motilities, polygalacturonase activity, and exopolysaccharide production, elevated biofilm formation, delayed hypersensitive response, and impaired virulence. Moreover, ~16% of all genes were differentially expressed in the mutant, among which the genes associated with virulence, nitrogen metabolism, and regulation were overrepresented (e.g., most T3SS/T3Es genes). Many of these traits and genes were regulated by PhcX and the global virulence regulator PhcA, but 81.4% of the genes were regulated in opposite directions. The functions of PhcX were largely conserved in R. solanacearum EP1 and GMI1000 strains. Apparent orthologs of PhcX are widely distributed in Proteobacteria, including the LqsR quorum sensing (QS) response regulator in Legionella pneumophilia. Notably, our data suggest that phcX was originally part of the Lqs QS system but was decoupled from Lqs in Ralstonia/Cupriavidus, physically linked to the phc QS genes, and connected with the virulence regulatory network in Ralstonia during its evolution. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of the virulence and metabolism regulation mechanisms in R. solanacearum and shed light on the evolution of its complex regulatory network. IMPORTANCE The bacterial wilt caused by the soil-borne phytopathogen Ralstonia solanacearum is one of the most destructive crop diseases. To achieve a successful infection, R. solanacearum has evolved an intricate regulatory network to orchestrate the expression of an arsenal of virulence factors and fine-tune the allocation of energy. However, despite the wealth of knowledge gained in the past decades, many players and connections are still missing from the network. The importance of our study lies in the identification of PhcX, a novel conserved global regulator with critical roles in modulating the virulence and metabolism of R. solanacearum. PhcX affects many well-characterized regulators and exhibits contrasting modes of regulation from the central regulator PhcA on a variety of virulence-associated traits and genes. Our findings add a valuable piece to the puzzle of how the pathogen regulates its proliferation and infection, which is critical for understanding its pathogenesis and developing disease control strategies.

Project description:BackgroundRalstonia solanacearum, the causal agent of bacterial wilt, is a genetically diverse bacterial plant pathogen present in tropical and subtropical regions of the world that infects more than 200 plant species, including economically important solanaceous crops. Most strains of R. solanacearum are only pathogenic at temperatures between 25 to 30°C with strains that can cause disease below 20°C considered a threat to agriculture in temperate areas. Identifying key molecular factors that distinguish strains virulent at cold temperatures from ones that are not is needed to develop effective management tools for this pathogen. We compared protein profiles of two strains virulent at low temperature and two strains not virulent at low temperature when incubated in the rhizosphere of tomato seedlings at 30 and 18°C using quantitative 2D DIGE gel methods. Spot intensities were quantified and compared, and differentially expressed proteins were sequenced and identified by mass spectrometry (MS/MS).ResultsFour hundred and eighteen (418) differentially expressed protein spots sequenced produced 101 unique proteins. The identified proteins were classified in the Gene Ontology biological processes categories of metabolism, cell processes, stress response, transport, secretion, motility, and virulence. Identified virulence factors included catalase (KatE), exoglucanase A (ChbA), drug efflux pump, and twitching motility porin (PilQ). Other proteins identified included two components of a putative type VI secretion system. We confirmed differential expression of 13 candidate genes using real time PCR techniques. Global regulators HrpB and HrpG also had temperature dependent expression when quantified by real time PCR.ConclusionsThe putative involvement of the identified proteins in virulence at low temperature is discussed. The discovery of a functional type VI secretion system provides a new potential virulence mechanism to explore. The global regulators HrpG and HrpB, and the protein expression profiles identified suggest that virulence at low temperatures can be partially explained by differences in regulation of virulence factors present in all the strains.

Project description:Ralstonia solanacearum species complex (RSSC) posses extremely abundant type III effectors (T3Es) that are translocated into plant cells via a syringe-like apparatus assembled by a type III secretion system (T3SS) to subvert host defense initiated by innate immunity. More than 100 T3Es are predicted among different RSSC strains, with an average of about 70 T3Es in each strain. Among them, 32 T3Es are found to be conserved among the RSSC and hence called the core T3Es. Here, we genetically characterized contribution of abundant T3Es to virulence of a Japanese RSSC strain OE1-1 toward host plants. While all the T3Es members of AWR family contributed slightly to virulence, those of the GALA, HLK, and SKWP families did not influence full virulence of OE1-1. Mutant OE1-1D21E (with deletion of all 21 T3Es members of four families) exhibited slightly impaired virulence, while mutant OE1-1D36E (deleting all 21 T3Es of 4 families and 15 core T3Es) exhibited substantially reduced virulence. Mutant OE1-1D42E (deleting all 21 T3Es of 4 families, 15 core T3Es and 6 extended core T3Es) failed to cause any disease on tobacco plants with leaf infiltration but retained faint virulence on tobacco plants with petiole inoculation. The proliferation of mutant OE1-1D42E in tobacco stems was substantially impaired with about three orders of magnitude less than that of OE1-1, while no impact in tobacco leaves if directly infiltrated into leaves. On the contrary, the OE1-1D42E mutant retained faint virulence on eggplants with leaf infiltration but completely lost virulence on eggplants with root-cutting inoculation. The proliferation of OE1-1D42E mutant both in eggplant leaves and stems was substantially impaired. Intriguingly, mutant OE1-1D42E still caused necrotic lesions in tobacco and eggplant leaves, indicating that some other than the 42 removed effectors are involved in expansion of necrotic lesions in host leaves. All taken together, we here genetically demonstrated that all the core and extended core T3Es are nearly crucial for virulence of OE1-1 toward host plants and provided currently a kind of T3Es-free strain that enables primary functional studies of individual T3Es in host cells.

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Necessity of OxyR for the hydrogen peroxide stress response and full virulence in Ralstonia solanacearum.

Publications

Necessity of OxyR for the hydrogen peroxide stress response and full virulence in Ralstonia solanacearum.

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