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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Ithaca, New York » Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture & Health » Emerging Pests and Pathogens Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #417012
Research Project: Advancing Knowledge of the Biology and Etiology of Bacterial Plant Pathogens Towards Management Strategies

Location: Emerging Pests and Pathogens Research

Title: Pseudomonas syringae socially-induced swimming motility requires the molybdenum cofactor

Author
item YANG, ZICHU - Cornell University
item Swingle, Bryan

Submitted to: Molecular Microbiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/5/2025
Publication Date: 5/19/2025
Citation: Yang, Z., Swingle, B.M. 2025. Pseudomonas syringae socially-induced swimming motility requires the molybdenum cofactor. Molecular Microbiology. https://doi.org/10.1111/mmi.15378.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/mmi.15378

Interpretive Summary: Bacteria live practically everywhere on earth – they are alive and teaming in great numbers all around us…actually on us and inside us too! Bacteria can quickly form colonies made up of billions of copies of themselves and coordinate activities such as their movement. How bacteria act when they are around other bacteria is an important part of how they live in nature. It can determine whether they live in beneficial communities or cause disease. We found that Pseudomonas syringae, which are plant pathogenic bacteria, become very aggressive and begin actively moving towards unrelated species of bacteria growing close by. To understand how this happens, we analyzed the genes expressed while P. syringae cells were actively moving towards their rivals and found that genes involved with utilization of molybdenum are necessary for this aggressive movement. This research is the first to show that molybdenum, a type of metal that all forms of life need in small quantities, is involved with bacterial territorial behavior.

Technical Abstract: Social interactions among bacteria can induce behaviors that affect their fitness and influence how complex communities assemble. Here we report a new socially induced motility behavior that we refer to as baited expansion in Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 (Pst DC3000), a plant pathogenic bacterium. We found Pst DC3000 displayed strongly induced swimming motility towards nearby colonies of Dickeya dianthicola or Escherichia coli. We developed a controlled system to visualize and characterize the development of baited expansion. Our results provide evidence that baited expansion behavior occurs in response to a chemical gradient established and maintained by the bait colony. We also found this behavior correlated with distinct transcriptional profiles and identified molybdenum cofactor as a crucial factor in facilitating the baited expansion behavior.