ARS | Publication request: GENOMIC MINING TYPE III SECRETION SYSTEM EFFECTORS IN PSEUDOMONAS SYRINGAE YIELDS NEW PICKS FOR ALL TTSS PROSPECTORS

Submitted to: Trends in Microbiology
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: September 6, 2002
Publication Date: October 1, 2002
Citation: SCHNEIDER, D.J. GENOMIC MINING TYPE III SECRETION SYSTEM EFFECTORS IN PSEUDOMONAS SYRINGAE YIELDS NEW PICKS FOR ALL TTSS PROSPECTORS. TRENDS IN MICROBIOLOGY. 2002.

Interpretive Summary: Many bacterial pathogens of plants and animals use a type III secretion system (TTSS) to deliver virulence effector proteins into host cells. Because effectors are heterogeneous in sequence and function, there has not been a systematic way to identify the genes encoding them in pathogen genomes, and our current inventories are probably incomplete. A draft version of the genome of a strain of Pseudomonas syringae, has the subject of five recent publications on experimental and computational methods for identifying genes for TTSS-secreted effector proteins. These efforts have shed considerable insight into virulence mechanisms, targeting signal, and strategies for finding genes coding for effector proteins in TTSS-dependent pathogens.

Technical Abstract: A pre-closure draft sequence of Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000, a pathogen of tomato and Arabidopsis, has recently supported five complementary studies which, collectively, identify 36 TTSS-secreted proteins and many more candidates in this strain. These studies demonstrate the advantages of combining experimental and computational approaches, and they yield new insights into TTSS effects and virulence regulation in P. syringae, potential effector targeting signals in all TTSS-dependent pathogens, and strategies for finding TTSS effectors in bacteria that have sequenced genomes.