Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain GV3101 is widely used in transient gene expression assays in plants, particularly Nicotiana spp. Transient expression assays have previously been used to study the role of pathogen effectors and elicitors in modulating plant defences, and to investigate the signal transduction pathways involved in expression of defence responses. We have used Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression to monitor the fate of fluorescent proteins targeted to specific cellular compartments in healthy and P. syringaeinfected tobacco leaves. However, inoculation of A. tumefaciens into tobacco leaves followed by co-infiltration with the tobacco pathogen P. syringae pv.tabaci resulted in delayed macroscopic symptoms when compared with leaves infiltrated with a procedural MgCl2 control followed by P. s. pv. tabaci infiltration. We have explored the mechanistic basis of this phenomenon by monitoring production of the defence signal salicylic acid (SA), which is induced during compatible and incompatible P. syringae–plant interactions. We monitored SA production in tobacco leaves inoculated with A. tumefaciens or with 10 mM MgCl2, followed by inoculation with P. s. pv. tabaci,P. s. pv. tomato, Flg22 or MgCl2. Both Pseudomonas pathogens elicited SA production in tobacco leaves but SA levels were significantly reduced by pre-treatment with A. tumefaciens. This clearly shows that Agrobacterium transient expression is not a phenotypically neutral background for studying plant defence responses and suggests that researchers should be cautious when interpreting results obtained using this method.
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Rico, A., Preston, G.M. (2008). Agrobacterium Suppresses P. syringae-Elicited Salicylate Production in Nicotiana tabacum Leaves. In: Fatmi, M., et al. Pseudomonas syringae Pathovars and Related Pathogens – Identification, Epidemiology and Genomics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6901-7_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6901-7_11
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