An aerotaxis receptor influences invasion of Agrobacterium tumefaciens into its host

Zhiwei Huang; Junnan Zou; Minliang Guo; Guoliang Zhang; Jun Gao; Hongliang Zhao; Feiyu Yan; Yuan Niu; Guang-Long Wang

doi:10.7717/peerj.16898

An aerotaxis receptor influences invasion of Agrobacterium tumefaciens into its host

PeerJ. 2024 Feb 5:12:e16898. doi: 10.7717/peerj.16898. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Zhiwei Huang¹, Junnan Zou¹, Minliang Guo², Guoliang Zhang¹, Jun Gao¹, Hongliang Zhao¹, Feiyu Yan¹, Yuan Niu¹, Guang-Long Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ Jiangsu Provincial Agricultural Green and Low Carbon Production Technology Engineering Research Center, School of Life Science and Food Engineering, Huaiyin Institute of Technology, Huai'an, Jiangsu Province, China.
² College of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, China.

Abstract

Agrobacterium tumefaciens is a soil-borne pathogenic bacterium that causes crown gall disease in many plants. Chemotaxis offers A. tumefaciens the ability to find its host and establish infection. Being an aerobic bacterium, A. tumefaciens possesses one chemotaxis system with multiple potential chemoreceptors. Chemoreceptors play an important role in perceiving and responding to environmental signals. However, the studies of chemoreceptors in A. tumefaciens remain relatively restricted. Here, we characterized a cytoplasmic chemoreceptor of A. tumefaciens C58 that contains an N-terminal globin domain. The chemoreceptor was designated as Atu1027. The deletion of Atu1027 not only eliminated the aerotactic response of A. tumefaciens to atmospheric air but also resulted in a weakened chemotactic response to multiple carbon sources. Subsequent site-directed mutagenesis and phenotypic analysis showed that the conserved residue His100 in Atu1027 is essential for the globin domain's function in both chemotaxis and aerotaxis. Furthermore, deleting Atu1027 impaired the biofilm formation and pathogenicity of A. tumefaciens. Collectively, our findings demonstrated that Atu1027 functions as an aerotaxis receptor that affects agrobacterial chemotaxis and the invasion of A. tumefaciens into its host.

Keywords: Aerotaxis; Agrobacterium tumefaciens; Biofilm formation; Chemoreceptor; Chemotaxis; Pathogenicity.

MeSH terms

Agrobacterium tumefaciens* / genetics
Chemotaxis* / genetics
Globins
Plant Tumors / microbiology
Plants

Substances

Globins

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32000051, 31870118, 31771736), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20201068), the Key Projects of Key Research and Development Programs of Jiangsu Province (No. BE2021323), and the Talent Introduction Research Project of Huaiyin Institute of Technology (No. Z301B19536). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.