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Type Iii Secretion System Effector Proteins: Double Agents In Bacterial Disease And Plant Defense, James R. Alfano, Alan Collmer

Department of Plant Pathology: Faculty Publications

Many phytopathogenic bacteria inject virulence effector proteins into plant cells via a Hrp type III secretion system (TTSS). Without the TTSS, these pathogens cannot defeat basal defenses, grow in plants, produce disease lesions in hosts, or elicit the hypersensitive response (HR) in nonhosts. Pathogen genome projects employing bioinformatic methods to identify TTSS Hrp regulon promoters and TTSS pathway targeting signals suggest that phytopathogenic Pseudomonas, Xanthomonas, and Ralstonia spp. harbor large arsenals of effectors. The Hrp TTSS employs cus- tomized cytoplasmic chaperones, conserved export components in the bacterial en- velope (also used by the TTSS of animal pathogens), and …