Abstract
Many bacterial plant pathogens produce products that contribute to virulence (21). What constitutes an virulence factor? In prin ciple, any molecule presented on the bacterial cell surface or translocated to the environment could act as a virulence determinant if it influ ences growth of the pathogen in planta. Loosely defined in this fashion, extracellular virulence factors include plant cell wall-degrading enzymes, toxins, DNA, hormones, siderophores, and signaling molecules (e.g. see 9, 15, 21, 27, 49, 50). Also, cell surface-anchored structures such as pili, flagella, lipopolysaccharide, exopolysaccharide slime layers, and outer membrane pro teins could have roles in bacterial survival within, or ingression of, the host plant (e.g. see 9, 18, 24). With such a broad definition of extracellular virulence factors it is not possible to cover the corresponding transport pro cesses involved in each case in this review. Consequently, I concentrate on a review of the secretion of a selection of molecules, particularly proteins, which are targeted totally outside of the bacterial cell, and will generally exclude discussion of the cell surface-anchored/associated structures, except in isolated cases. In addition, I concentrate exclusively on gram-negative bacterial plant
Published Version
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