Functional analysis of Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis RXLR effectors

PLoS One. 2014 Nov 6;9(11):e110624. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0110624. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

The biotrophic plant pathogen Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis produces a set of putative effector proteins that contain the conserved RXLR motif. For most of these RXLR proteins the role during infection is unknown. Thirteen RXLR proteins from H. arabidopsidis strain Waco9 were analyzed for sequence similarities and tested for a role in virulence. The thirteen RXLR proteins displayed conserved N-termini and this N-terminal conservation was also found in the 134 predicted RXLR genes from the genome of H. arabidopsidis strain Emoy2. To investigate the effects of single RXLR effector proteins on plant defense responses, thirteen H. arabidopsidis Waco9 RXLR genes were expressed in Arabidopsis thaliana. Subsequently, these plants were screened for altered susceptibility to the oomycetes H. arabidopsidis and Phytophthora capsici, and the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae. Additionally, the effect of the RXLR proteins on flg22-triggered basal immune responses was assessed. Multifactorial analysis of results collated from all experiments revealed that, except for RXLR20, all RXLR effector proteins tested affected plant immunity. For RXLR9 this was confirmed using a P. syringae ΔCEL-mediated effector delivery system. Together, the results show that many H. arabidopsidis RXLR effectors have small effects on the plant immune response, suggesting that suppression of host immunity by this biotrophic pathogen is likely to be caused by the combined actions of effectors.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Arabidopsis / genetics*
  • Host-Pathogen Interactions*
  • Oomycetes / pathogenicity*
  • Plant Diseases / microbiology*
  • Plant Immunity / genetics*
  • Plant Proteins / genetics*
  • Virulence

Substances

  • Plant Proteins

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Centre for BioSystems Genomics [projects CBSG-PG7, CBSG-PG8 and CBSG-BB16] and the European Research Council (ERC) [ERC Advanced Grant agreement number 269072 - PLANTIMMUSYS]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.