Plant xylem fluid is considered a nutrient-poor environment, but the bacterial wilt pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum is well adapted to it, growing to 10 ⁸ to 10 ⁹ CFU/g tomato stem. To better understand how R. solanacearum succeeds in this habitat, we analyzed the transcriptomes of two phylogenetically distinct R. solanacearum strains that both wilt tomato, strains UW551 (phylotype II) and GMI1000 (phylotype I). We profiled bacterial gene expression at ~6 × 10 ⁸ CFU/ml in culture or in plant xylem during early tomato bacterial wilt pathogenesis. Despite phylogenetic differences, these two strains expressed their 3,477 common orthologous genes in generally similar patterns, with about 12% of their transcriptomes significantly altered in planta versus in rich medium. Several primary metabolic pathways were highly expressed during pathogenesis. These pathways included sucrose uptake and catabolism, and components of these pathways were encoded by genes in the scrABY cluster. A UW551 scrA mutant was significantly reduced in virulence on resistant and susceptible tomato as well as on potato and the epidemiologically important weed host Solanum dulcamara . Functional scrA contributed to pathogen competitive fitness during colonization of tomato xylem, which contained ~300 µM sucrose. scrA expression was induced by sucrose, but to a much greater degree by growth in planta . Unexpectedly, 45% of the genes directly regulated by HrpB, the transcriptional activator of the type 3 secretion system (T3SS), were upregulated in planta at high cell densities. This result modifies a regulatory model based on bacterial behavior in culture, where this key virulence factor is repressed at high cell densities. The active transcription of these genes in wilting plants suggests that T3SS has a biological role throughout the disease cycle. IMPORTANCE Ralstonia solanacearum is a widespread plant pathogen that causes bacterial wilt disease. It inflicts serious crop losses on tropical farmers, with major economic and human consequences. It is also a model for the many destructive microbes that colonize the water-conducting plant xylem tissue, which is low in nutrients and oxygen. We extracted bacteria from infected tomato plants and globally identified the biological functions that R. solanacearum expresses during plant pathogenesis. This revealed the unexpected presence of sucrose in tomato xylem fluid and the pathogen’s dependence on host sucrose for virulence on tomato, potato, and the common weed bittersweet nightshade. Further, R. solanacearum was highly responsive to the plant environment, expressing several metabolic and virulence functions quite differently in the plant than in pure culture. These results reinforce the utility of studying pathogens in interaction with hosts and suggest that selecting for reduced sucrose levels could generate wilt-resistant crops.

The Ralstonia solanacearum species complex includes R. solanacearum, R. syzygii, and the Blood Disease Bacterium (BDB). All colonize plant xylem vessels and cause wilt diseases, but with significant biological differences. R. solanacearum is a soilborne bacterium that infects the roots of a broad range of plants. R. syzygii causes Sumatra disease of clove trees and is actively transmitted by cercopoid insects. BDB is also pathogenic to a single host, banana, and is transmitted by pollinating insects. Sequencing and DNA-DNA hybridization studies indicated that despite their phenotypic differences, these three plant pathogens are actually very closely related, falling into the Phylotype IV subgroup of the R. solanacearum species complex. To better understand the relationships among these bacteria, we sequenced and annotated the genomes of R. syzygii strain R24 and BDB strain R229. These genomes were compared to strain PSI07, a closely related Phylotype IV tomato isolate of R. solanacearum, and to five additional R. solanacearum genomes. Whole-genome comparisons confirmed previous phylogenetic results: the three phylotype IV strains share more and larger syntenic regions with each other than with other R. solanacearum strains. Furthermore, the genetic distances between strains, assessed by an in-silico equivalent of DNA-DNA hybridization, unambiguously showed that phylotype IV strains of BDB, R. syzygii and R. solanacearum form one genomic species. Based on these comprehensive data we propose a revision of the taxonomy of the R. solanacearum species complex. The BDB and R. syzygii genomes encoded no obvious unique metabolic capacities and contained no evidence of horizontal gene transfer from bacteria occupying similar niches. Genes specific to R. syzygii and BDB were almost all of unknown function or extrachromosomal origin. Thus, the pathogenic life-styles of these organisms are more probably due to ecological adaptation and genomic convergence during vertical evolution than to the acquisition of DNA by horizontal transfer.

Vascular plant pathogens travel long distances through host veins, leading to life-threatening, systemic infections. In contrast, nonvascular pathogens remain restricted to infection sites, triggering localized symptom development. The contrasting features of vascular and nonvascular diseases suggest distinct etiologies, but the basis for each remains unclear. Here, we show that the hydrolase CbsA acts as a phenotypic switch between vascular and nonvascular plant pathogenesis. cbsA was enriched in genomes of vascular phytopathogenic bacteria in the family Xanthomonadaceae and absent in most nonvascular species. CbsA expression allowed nonvascular Xanthomonas to cause vascular blight, while cbsA mutagenesis resulted in reduction of vascular or enhanced nonvascular symptom development. Phylogenetic hypothesis testing further revealed that cbsA was lost in multiple nonvascular lineages and more recently gained by some vascular subgroups, suggesting that vascular pathogenesis is ancestral. Our results overall demonstrate how the gain and loss of single loci can facilitate the evolution of complex ecological traits.

Plants use the signaling molecule salicylic acid (SA) to trigger defenses against diverse pathogens, including the bacterial wilt pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum . SA can also inhibit microbial growth. Most sequenced strains of the heterogeneous R. solanacearum species complex can degrade SA via gentisic acid to pyruvate and fumarate. R. solanacearum strain GMI1000 expresses this SA degradation pathway during tomato pathogenesis. Transcriptional analysis revealed that subinhibitory SA levels induced expression of the SA degradation pathway, toxin efflux pumps, and some general stress responses. Interestingly, SA treatment repressed expression of virulence factors, including the type III secretion system, suggesting that this pathogen may suppress virulence functions when stressed. A GMI1000 mutant lacking SA degradation activity was much more susceptible to SA toxicity but retained the wild-type colonization ability and virulence on tomato. This may be because SA is less important than gentisic acid in tomato defense signaling. However, another host, tobacco, responds strongly to SA. To test the hypothesis that SA degradation contributes to virulence on tobacco, we measured the effect of adding this pathway to the tobacco-pathogenic R. solanacearum strain K60, which lacks SA degradation genes. Ectopic addition of the GMI1000 SA degradation locus, including adjacent genes encoding two porins and a LysR-type transcriptional regulator, significantly increased the virulence of strain K60 on tobacco. Together, these results suggest that R. solanacearum degrades plant SA to protect itself from inhibitory levels of this compound and also to enhance its virulence on plant hosts like tobacco that use SA as a defense signal molecule. IMPORTANCE Plant pathogens such as the bacterial wilt agent Ralstonia solanacearum threaten food and economic security by causing significant losses for small- and large-scale growers of tomato, tobacco, banana, potato, and ornamentals. Like most plants, these crop hosts use salicylic acid (SA) both indirectly as a signal to activate defenses and directly as an antimicrobial chemical. We found that SA inhibits growth of R. solanacearum and induces a general stress response that includes repression of multiple bacterial wilt virulence factors. The ability to degrade SA reduces the pathogen’s sensitivity to SA toxicity and increases its virulence on tobacco.

Pathogenic bacteria in the genus Xanthomonas cause diseases on over 350 plant species, including cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.). Because of regulatory limitations, the biology of the Xanthomonas-cannabis pathosystem remains largely unexplored. To gain insight into the evolution of Xanthomonas strains pathogenic to cannabis, we sequenced the genomes of two geographically distinct Xanthomonas strains, NCPPB 3753 and NCPPB 2877, which were previously isolated from symptomatic plant tissue in Japan and Romania. Comparative multilocus sequence analysis of housekeeping genes revealed that they belong to Group 2, which comprises most of the described species of Xanthomonas. Interestingly, both strains lack the Hrp Type III secretion system and do not contain any of the known Type III effectors. Yet their genomes notably encode two key Hrp pathogenicity regulators HrpG and HrpX, and hrpG and hrpX are in the same genetic organization as in the other Group 2 xanthomonads. Promoter prediction of HrpX-regulated genes suggests the induction of an aminopeptidase, a lipase and two polygalacturonases upon plant colonization, similar to other plant-pathogenic xanthomonads. Genome analysis of the distantly related Xanthomonas maliensis strain 97M, which was isolated from a rice leaf in Mali, similarly demonstrated the presence of HrpG, HrpX and a HrpX-regulated polygalacturonase, and the absence of the Hrp Type III secretion system and known Type III effectors. Given the observation that some Xanthomonas strains across distinct taxa do not contain hrpG and hrpX, we speculate a stepwise evolution of pathogenicity, which involves (i) acquisition of key regulatory genes and cell wall-degrading enzymes, followed by (ii) acquisition of the Hrp type III secretion system, which is ultimately accompanied by (iii) successive acquisition of type III effectors.

During bacterial wilt of tomato, the plant pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum upregulates expression of popS , which encodes a type III-secreted effector in the AvrE family. PopS is a core effector present in all sequenced strains in the R. solanacearum species complex. The phylogeny of popS mirrors that of the species complex as a whole, suggesting that this is an ancient, vertically inherited effector needed for association with plants. A popS mutant of R. solanacearum UW551 had reduced virulence on agriculturally important Solanum spp., including potato and tomato plants. However, the popS mutant had wild-type virulence on a weed host, Solanum dulcamara , suggesting that some species can avoid the effects of PopS. The popS mutant was also significantly delayed in colonization of tomato stems compared to the wild type. Some AvrE-type effectors from gammaproteobacteria suppress salicylic acid (SA)-mediated plant defenses, suggesting that PopS, a betaproteobacterial ortholog, has a similar function. Indeed, the popS mutant induced significantly higher expression of tomato SA-triggered pathogenesis-related (PR) genes than the wild type. Further, pretreatment of roots with SA exacerbated the popS mutant virulence defect. Finally, the popS mutant had no colonization defect on SA-deficient NahG transgenic tomato plants. Together, these results indicate that this conserved effector suppresses SA-mediated defenses in tomato roots and stems, which are R. solanacearum ’s natural infection sites. Interestingly, PopS did not trigger necrosis when heterologously expressed in Nicotiana leaf tissue, unlike the AvrE homolog DspE _Pcc from the necrotroph Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum . This is consistent with the differing pathogenesis modes of necrosis-causing gammaproteobacteria and biotrophic R. solanacearum . IMPORTANCE The type III-secreted AvrE effector family is widely distributed in high-impact plant-pathogenic bacteria and is known to suppress plant defenses for virulence. We characterized the biology of PopS, the only AvrE homolog made by the bacterial wilt pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum . To our knowledge, this is the first study of R. solanacearum effector function in roots and stems, the natural infection sites of this pathogen. Unlike the functionally redundant R. solanacearum effectors studied to date, PopS is required for full virulence and wild-type colonization of two natural crop hosts. R. solanacearum is a biotrophic pathogen that causes a nonnecrotic wilt. Consistent with this, PopS suppressed plant defenses but did not elicit cell death, unlike AvrE homologs from necrosis-causing plant pathogens. We propose that AvrE family effectors have functionally diverged to adapt to the necrotic or nonnecrotic lifestyle of their respective pathogens.