Identification of PthA-dependent gene expression Citrus sinensis and isolation of cis-acting elements bound by PthA

Author(s)

André Luiz Araújo Pereira

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Biologia
• Defense date: 2011-08-31

Examining board members

Celso Eduardo Benedetti; Sergio Herminio Brommonschenkel; Fabienne Florence Lucienne Micheli; Andrea Balan; Wanderley Dias da Silveira

• Advisor: Celso Eduardo Benedetti

Abstract

Citrus canker is a result of a compatible interaction between Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri and Citrus spp. There is no cure for citrus canker, and the disease is easily spread and difficult to be managed. The scenario is threatening since the disease dramatically diminishes the quality of fruits in infected plants leading to great economic losses for the world citrus producers. The main citrus canker symptoms known as hypertrophy (cell enlargement) and hyperplasia (cell division) are PthA-dependent. PthA is an effector protein from X. citri which belongs to the TAL effectors (transcription activatorlike) family. The closest homologue of PthA is AvrBs3 from Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria, a TAL effector that acts as a transcriptional factor to modulate host transcription to the pathogen's benefit. Similarity shared by these two proteins is around 97%, suggesting that PthA plays a similar role in the citrus host. Through a number of microarray experiments, we investigate the gene transcription in sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) in response to the transient expression of PthA from X. citri or PthC from X. aurantifolii, pathotype C, a bacteria that causes citrus canker in Mexican lime but in orange trigger a hypersensitive response in sweet orange. We observed that PthCs down-regulated various auxin signaling genes and induced the expression of genes involved in defense and gene silencing. On the other hand, PthAs induces several genes implicated in canker development such as cell division and elongation, cell-wall synthesis and remodeling, synthesis, mobilization and signaling of auxin and gibberellin. Promoter regions of PthA-induced genes were isolated and shown to have predicted PthA and PthC binding sites at or near their putative TATA boxes. Moreover, competition gel shift assays confirmed that PthA4 shows preferential binding to the TATA box of the pathogenesis-related (pr5) gene promoter, supporting the idea that TAL effectors may act as general TATA-binding proteins. Finally, both chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and co-transformation assays demonstrated however as preliminary results, that PthA4 is able to transactivate pr5 in planta. Albeit the molecular mechanism by which citrus canker develop remains elusive at the molecular level, we provided data supporting the notion that PthA acts as a transcriptional factor, as well as identified PthA-induced genes associated with hypertrophy and hyperplasia. Furthermore, the promoter regions isolated here might be useful to obtain citrus plants resistant to the canker bacteria (AU)