Engineering bacteriocin‐mediated resistance against the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae

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Rooney, William M. and Grinter, Rhys W. and Correia, Annapaula and Parkhill, Julian and Walker, Daniel C. and Milner, Joel J. (2020) Engineering bacteriocin‐mediated resistance against the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae. Plant Biotechnology Journal, 18 (5). pp. 1296-1306. (https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.13294)

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Abstract

The plant pathogen, Pseudomonas syringae (Ps), together with related Ps species, infects and attacks a wide range of agronomically important crops, including tomato, kiwifruit, pepper, olive and soybean, causing economic losses. Currently, chemicals and introduced resistance genes are used to protect plants against these pathogens but have limited success and may have adverse environmental impacts. Consequently, there is a pressing need to develop alternative strategies to combat bacterial disease in crops. One such strategy involves using narrow-spectrum protein antibiotics (so-called bacteriocins), which diverse bacteria use to compete against closely related species. Here, we demonstrate that one bacteriocin, putidacin L1 (PL1), can be expressed in an active form at high levels in Arabidopsis and in Nicotiana benthamiana in planta to provide effective resistance against diverse pathovars of Ps. Furthermore, we find that Ps strains that mutate to acquire tolerance to PL1 lose their O-antigen, exhibit reduced motility and still cannot induce disease symptoms in PL1-transgenic Arabidopsis. Our results provide proof-of-principle that the transgene-mediated expression of a bacteriocin in planta can provide effective disease resistance to bacterial pathogens. Thus, the expression of bacteriocins in crops might offer an effective strategy for managing bacterial disease, in the same way that the genetic modification of crops to express insecticidal proteins has proven to be an extremely successful strategy for pest management. Crucially, nearly all genera of bacteria, including many plant pathogenic species, produce bacteriocins, providing an extensive source of these antimicrobial agents.

ORCID iDs

Rooney, William M., Grinter, Rhys W., Correia, Annapaula, Parkhill, Julian, Walker, Daniel C. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4206-2942 and Milner, Joel J.;
  • Item type:Article
    ID code:86294
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    3 May 2020
    Published
    9 November 2019
    Published Online
    27 October 2019
    Accepted
    Notes:Rooney, W. M., Grinter, R. W., Correia, A., Parkhill, J., Walker, D. C.and Milner, J. J. (2020) Engineering bacteriocin-mediated resistance against the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae. Plant Biotechnol J, https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.13294 © 2019 The Authors
    Subjects:Agriculture > Plant culture
    Science > Natural history > Biology
    Department:Faculty of Science > Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:27 Jul 2023 08:19
    Last modified:11 Nov 2024 14:00
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/86294
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