Identification of a Putative DNA-Binding Protein in That Acts as a Susceptibility Hub and Interacts With Multiple Effectors.

Phytopathogens use secreted effector proteins to suppress host immunity and promote pathogen virulence, and there is increasing evidence that the host-pathogen interactome comprises a complex network. To identify novel interactors of the effector HopZ1a, we performed a yeast two-hybrid screen that identified a previously uncharacterized protein that we designate HopZ1a interactor 1 (ZIN1). Additional analyses in yeast and in planta revealed that ZIN1 also interacts with several other effectors. We show that an loss-of-function mutant is less susceptible to infection by certain strains of , while overexpression of results in enhanced susceptibility. Functionally, ZIN1 exhibits topoisomerase-like activity in vitro. Transcriptional profiling of wild-type and plants inoculated with indicated that while ZIN1 regulates a wide range of pathogen-responsive biological processes, the list of genes more highly expressed in versus wild-type plants is particularly enriched for ribosomal protein genes. Altogether, these data illuminate ZIN1 as a potential susceptibility hub that interacts with multiple effectors to influence the outcome of plant-microbe interactions.[Formula: see text] Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.