The pan-genome effector-triggered immunity landscape of a host-pathogen interaction

Science. 2020 Feb 14;367(6479):763-768. doi: 10.1126/science.aax4079.

Abstract

Effector-triggered immunity (ETI), induced by host immune receptors in response to microbial effectors, protects plants against virulent pathogens. However, a systematic study of ETI prevalence against species-wide pathogen diversity is lacking. We constructed the Pseudomonas syringae Type III Effector Compendium (PsyTEC) to reduce the pan-genome complexity of 5127 unique effector proteins, distributed among 70 families from 494 strains, to 529 representative alleles. We screened PsyTEC on the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and identified 59 ETI-eliciting alleles (11.2%) from 19 families (27.1%), with orthologs distributed among 96.8% of P. syringae strains. We also identified two previously undescribed host immune receptors, including CAR1, which recognizes the conserved effectors AvrE and HopAA1, and found that 94.7% of strains harbor alleles predicted to be recognized by either CAR1 or ZAR1.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Arabidopsis / genetics
  • Arabidopsis / immunology*
  • Arabidopsis / microbiology*
  • Arabidopsis Proteins / genetics
  • Arabidopsis Proteins / physiology
  • Bacterial Proteins / genetics
  • Bacterial Proteins / immunology
  • Carrier Proteins / genetics
  • Carrier Proteins / physiology
  • Genome, Plant
  • Host-Pathogen Interactions / genetics
  • Host-Pathogen Interactions / immunology*
  • Immunity, Innate / genetics*
  • Plant Diseases / genetics
  • Plant Diseases / immunology*
  • Plant Diseases / microbiology*
  • Plant Immunity / genetics*
  • Pseudomonas syringae / genetics
  • Pseudomonas syringae / pathogenicity*

Substances

  • Arabidopsis Proteins
  • AvrE protein, Pseudomonas syringae
  • Bacterial Proteins
  • Carrier Proteins
  • ZAR1 protein, Arabidopsis