Abstract
A wide diversity of plant-associated symbionts, including microbes, produce proteins that can enter host cells, or are injected into host cells in order to modify the physiology of the host to promote colonization. These molecules, termed effectors, commonly target the host defense signaling pathways in order to suppress the defense response. Others target the gene expression machinery or trigger specific modifications to host morphology or physiology that promote the nutrition and proliferation of the symbiont. When recognized by the host's surveillance machinery, which includes cognate resistance (R) gene products, defense responses are engaged to restrict pathogen proliferation. Effectors from diverse symbionts may be delivered into plant cells via varied mechanisms, including whole organism cellular entry (viruses, some bacteria and fungi), type III and IV secretion (in bacteria), physical injection (nematodes and insects) and protein translocation signal sequences (oomycetes and fungi). This mini-review will summarize both similarities and differences in effectors and effector delivery systems found in diverse plant-associated symbionts as well as how these are described with Plant-Associated Microbe Gene Ontology (PAMGO) terms.
Highlights
Diverse organisms live in intimate association with plants, with the outcome of these associations dependent upon a complex interplay of gene products
This particular review will focus on properties of effector proteins that enter the host cytoplasm and the role that Gene Ontology (GO) can play in highlighting similarities and differences exhibited by effectors deployed by plant pathogens from diverse biological kingdoms
It is important to note that while this review focuses on organisms living in a pathogenic relationship with the host plant, there are many associations that cannot readily
Summary
The value of GO annotations in efficiently summarizing information about gene products from the literature in a standardized way cannot be over-emphasized. The GO terms developed by the PAMGO consortium greatly improve the resources for annotation of diverse symbiont genomes, for gene products such as effectors that are directly involved in the interaction with the host. Such annotations can be used to aid interpretation of genome sequence comparisons and of microarray and proteomics data. Increased community involvement in GO annotation of more symbiont genomes, along with the development of additional GO terms, will provide valuable resources for more comprehensive cross-kingdom effector analyses, which will lead to a better understanding of mechanisms underlying symbiont interactions with hosts
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