Nuclear effector proteins released by bacteria, oomycete, nematode, and fungi burden the global environment and crop yield. Microbial effectors are key weapons in the evolutionary arms race between plants and pathogens, vital in determining the success of pathogenic colonization. Secreted effectors undermine a multitude of host cellular processes depending on their target destination. Effectors are classified by their localization as either extracellular (apoplastic) or intracellular. Intracellular effectors can be further subclassified by their compartment such as the nucleus, cytoplasm or chloroplast. Nuclear effectors bring into question the role of the plant nucleus' intrinsic defence strategies and their vulnerability to effector-based manipulation. Nuclear effectors interfere with multiple nuclear processes including the epigenetic regulation of the host chromatin, the impairment of the trans-kingdom antifungal RNAi machinery, and diverse classes of immunity-associated host proteins. These effector-targeted pathways are widely conserved among different hosts and regulate a broad array of plant cellular processes. Thus, these nuclear sites constitute meaningful targets for effectors to subvert the plant defence system and acquire resources for pathogenic propagation. This review provides an extensive and comparative compilation of diverse plant microbe nuclear effector libraries, thereby highlighting the distinct and conserved mechanisms these effectors employ to modulate plant cellular processes for the pathogen's profit.
Keywords: effector-triggered immunity; epigenetic modification; host metabolic pathways; nuclear effectors; nuclear import; nuclear localization signal; plant pathogens.
© 2023 The Authors. Molecular Plant Pathology published by British Society for Plant Pathology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.