Correa Marrero Miguel, Capdevielle Sylvain, Huang Weijie, Al-Subhi Ali M, Busscher Marco, Busscher-Lange Jacqueline, van der Wal Froukje, de Ridder Dick, van Dijk Aalt D J, Hogenhout Saskia A, Immink Richard G H
Bioinformatics Group, Wageningen University and Research, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Department of Crop Genetics, John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, Norfolk, NR4 7UH, UK.
Plant J. 2024 Feb;117(4):1281-1297. doi: 10.1111/tpj.16546. Epub 2023 Nov 15.
Phytoplasmas are pathogenic bacteria that reprogram plant host development for their own benefit. Previous studies have characterized a few different phytoplasma effector proteins that destabilize specific plant transcription factors. However, these are only a small fraction of the potential effectors used by phytoplasmas; therefore, the molecular mechanisms through which phytoplasmas modulate their hosts require further investigation. To obtain further insights into the phytoplasma infection mechanisms, we generated a protein-protein interaction network between a broad set of phytoplasma effectors and a large, unbiased collection of Arabidopsis thaliana transcription factors and transcriptional regulators. We found widespread, but specific, interactions between phytoplasma effectors and host transcription factors, especially those related to host developmental processes. In particular, many unrelated effectors target specific sets of TCP transcription factors, which regulate plant development and immunity. Comparison with other host-pathogen protein interaction networks shows that phytoplasma effectors have unusual targets, indicating that phytoplasmas have evolved a unique and unusual infection strategy. This study contributes a rich and solid data source that guides further investigations of the functions of individual effectors, as demonstrated for some herein. Moreover, the dataset provides insights into the underlying molecular mechanisms of phytoplasma infection.
植原体是一类致病性细菌，它们会为自身利益而重新编程植物宿主的发育过程。先前的研究已经鉴定出一些不同的植原体效应蛋白，这些蛋白会使特定的植物转录因子不稳定。然而，这些只是植原体所使用的潜在效应蛋白中的一小部分；因此，植原体调节其宿主的分子机制仍需进一步研究。为了更深入了解植原体的感染机制，我们构建了一个广泛的植原体效应蛋白与大量无偏向性的拟南芥转录因子和转录调节因子之间的蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用网络。我们发现植原体效应蛋白与宿主转录因子之间存在广泛但特定的相互作用，尤其是那些与宿主发育过程相关的转录因子。特别地，许多不相关的效应蛋白靶向特定的TCP转录因子集，这些转录因子调节植物的发育和免疫。与其他宿主-病原体蛋白质相互作用网络的比较表明，植原体效应蛋白具有不同寻常的靶点，这表明植原体已经进化出一种独特且不同寻常的感染策略。本研究提供了丰富而坚实的数据源，可指导对单个效应蛋白功能的进一步研究，本文中对一些效应蛋白的研究即证明了这一点。此外，该数据集还为植原体感染的潜在分子机制提供了见解。
