Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Crown Gall Disease

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Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Crown Gall Disease

• By Clarissa Collins

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Questions.

• What does Agrobacterium tumefaciens cause and
  why?
• How does the DNA from the bacteria get into the
  plant?
• What is the significance of the Ti plasmid?

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Agrobacterium tumefaciens

• Gram negative rod
• Alpha-class proteobacterium
• Based on rRNA sequences
• Induces Crown Gall Disease
• Enters plant wound
• Tumor forming

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Biotype II KAT23

• Most virulent of the three biotypes
• Carries Ti plasmid
• (pTiKAT23)
• 180kb
• In DNA
• Responsible for tumor formation
• At the Crown of the plant

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Crown Gall Disease

• Tumor forming
• Destructive to crops
• Engineers the plant
• to multiply rapidly
• forming the tumor

arabidopsis.info/students/agrobacterium/
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The Ti Plasmid

• Ti Plasmid

www.patentlens.net/daisy/AgroTran/g1
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Virulence genes

• Requirements for tumor formation
• virA
• virG
• 35kb of DNA

openlearn.open.ac.uk/.../view.php?id171989
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The T-DNA

• Codes for...
• Amino acids
• Opines, auxin, and cytokinin
• Nutrition
• Housing
• Protection

bioweb.wku.edu/.../CloningVectEuk9/Review.html
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Conjugation

• Ti plasmid does not make
• It into the cell?
• Type IV Secretion System
• VirB/D4
• TrlP
• Cascales et al

io.uwinnipeg.ca/.../16cm05/1116/16monera.htm
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Treatment

• Aspirin?
• Salicylic Acid treatment
• Biotrophic and hemibiotrophic
• Systemic acquired resistance
• Problem
• NahG gene

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Antibiotic Treatment

• Transgenic plants
• Could be crucial in providing antibiotic
  resistance for the plant
• Kanamycin
• Kills A. tumefaciens
• Elizabeth Kay
• Trangenic plant

www.saynotogmos.org/uoct03c.htm
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Conclusions

• Crown Gall disease is spreading and could become
  a major problem in crop production
• Salicylic acid treatment offers promising results
  in eliminating harmful bacteria that cause Crown
  Gall Disease
• Immunity from basal defense mechanisms and
  pathogen associated molecular patterns and by
  other places on the plant
• Antibiotic treatment against bacteria that allow
  the plant to survive are useful for farmers
  however, could be bad for resistance later
• Farmers will produce highest yield possible with
  these treatments
• Without a treatment against these harmful
  bacteria, crops will be diminished and loss of
  money would be detrimental especially with the
  economy

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Discussion

• Do you think the application of antibiotics on
  these crops will be harmful for the environment?
• What other tests could be done to determine a
  coarse of action against the bacterium?

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References

• Deeken, R., et. al, 2006. Genomic Analysis of
  Tumor Development and Source-Sink Relationships
  in Agrobacterium-Induced Crown Gall Disease in
  Arabidopsis. Am. Society of Plant Biol. The Plant
  Cell Vol.18 3350-3352
• Yukawa, K., Kaku, Hisatoshi, K., Tanaka, H.,
  Koga-Ban, Y., and Fukuda, M. 2007.
  Characterization and Host Range Determination of
  Soybean Super Virulent Agrobacterium tumefaciens
  KAT23. Biosci, Biotechnol, Biochem. 71 (7)
  1676-1682
• Anad, A., Uppalapati, S.R., Ryu, C.M, Allen, S.,
  Kang, Li, Tang, Y., Mysore, K.S. 2008. Salicylic
  Acid and Systemic Acquired Resistance Play a Role
  in Attenuating Crown Gall Disease by
  Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Am. Society for Plant
  Biologists. Vol.146, 703-715
• Maier, R., Pepper, I.L., Gerba, C., 2009.
  Environmental Microbiology 2nd Ed. p. 337-339
  Academic Press Elsevier, Burlington Maryland.
• Cascales, Eric and Christie, Peter. 2004.
  Definition of a Bacterial Type IV Secretion
  Pathway for a DNA Substrate. Science Vol. 304
  1170-1173
• Snyder, L. and Champness, W. 2007. Molecular
  Genestics of Bacteria 3rd Ed. p. 175. ASM
  Press, Washington D.C.
• Kay, E., Vogel, T., Bertolla, F., Nalin, R.,
  Simonet, P., 2002. In Situ Transfer of Antibiotic
  Resistant Genes from Transgenic (Transplastomic)
  Tobacco Plants to Bacteria. Applied and
  Environmental Microbiology p. 3345-3351 Vol. 68
  No.7
• Soto, M., Sanjuan, J., Olivares, J., 2006
  Rhizobia and Plant-Pathogenic Bacteriacommon
  infection weapons. Microbiology152 p.3167-3174
• Truman, W., Bennett, M., Kubigsteltig, I.,
  Turnbull, C., and Grant, M., 2006 Arabidopsis
  systemic immunity uses conserved defense
  signaling pathways and is mediated by jasmonates.
  PNAS Vol.104 no.3
• 10.) Horton, Moran, Scrimgeor, Perry, and Rawn
  2006. Principles of Biochemistry. Pearson
  Prentice Hall, New Jersey