Closely related plasmid replicons coexisting in the phytopathogen pseudomonas syringae show a mosaic organization of the replication region and altered incompatibility behavior.

Many Pseudomonas syringae strains contain native plasmids that are important for host-pathogen interactions, and most of them contain several coexisting plasmids (pPT23A-like plasmids) that cross-hybridize to replication sequences from pPT23A, which also carries a gene cluster coding for the phytotoxin coronatine in P. syringae pv. tomato PT23. In this study, three functional pPT23A-like replicons were cloned from P. syringae pv. glycinea race 6, suggesting that the compatibility of highly related replicons is a common feature of P. syringae strains. Hybridization experiments using three separate incompatibility determinants previously identified from pPT23A and the rulAB (UV radiation tolerance) genes showed that the organization of the replication region among pPT23A-like plasmids from several P. syringae pathovars is poorly conserved. The putative repA gene from four pPT23A-like replicons from P. syringae pv. glycinea race 6 was amplified by using specific primers. The restriction profiles of the resulting PCR products for the race 6 plasmids were more similar to each other than they were to that of pPT23A. These data, together with the existence of other cross-hybridizing DNA regions around the replicon among the race 6 pPT23A-like plasmids, suggest that some of these plasmids may have originated from duplication events. Our results also imply that modifications of the repA sequences and the poor conservation of putative maintenance determinants contribute to the suppression of incompatibility among members of the pPT23A-like family, thus enhancing the genomic plasticity of P. syringae.