Deciphering the rhizosphere microbiome for disease-suppressive bacteria.

Disease-suppressive soils are exceptional ecosystems in which crop plants suffer less from specific soil-borne pathogens than expected owing to the activities of other soil microorganisms. For most disease-suppressive soils, the microbes and mechanisms involved in pathogen control are unknown. By coupling PhyloChip-based metagenomics of the rhizosphere microbiome with culture-dependent functional analyses, we identified key bacterial taxa and genes involved in suppression of a fungal root pathogen.

Functional, genetic and chemical characterization of biosurfactants produced by plant growth-promoting Pseudomonas putida 267.

Aims: Plant growth-promoting Pseudomonas putida strain 267, originally isolated from the rhizosphere of black pepper, produces biosurfactants that cause lysis of zoospores of the oomycete pathogen Phytophthora capsici. The biosurfactants were characterized, the biosynthesis gene(s) partially identified, and their role in control of Phytophthora damping-off of cucumber evaluated.

Methods And Results: The biosurfactants were shown to lyse zoospores of Phy.

The Cf-4 and Cf-9 resistance genes against Cladosporium fulvum are conserved in wild tomato species.

The Cf-4 and Cf-9 genes originate from the wild tomato species Lycopersicon hirsutum and L. pimpinellifolium and confer resistance to strains of the leaf mold fungus Cladosporium fulvum that secrete the Avr4 and Avr9 elicitor proteins, respectively. Homologs of Cf-4 and Cf-9 (Hcr9s) are located in several clusters and evolve mainly through sequence exchange between homologs.

Receptor-like proteins involved in plant disease resistance.

SUMMARY Race-specific resistance in plants against microbial pathogens is governed by several distinct classes of resistance (R) genes. This review focuses on the class that consists of the plasma membrane-bound leucine-rich repeat proteins known as receptor-like proteins (RLPs). The first isolated resistance genes of the RLP class are the tomato Cf genes, which confer resistance to the fungal pathogen Cladosporium fulvum.

Gene shuffling-generated and natural variants of the tomato resistance gene Cf-9 exhibit different auto-necrosis-inducing activities in Nicotiana species.

Tomato Cf genes encode membrane-bound proteins with extracellular leucine-rich repeats, and confer resistance to the fungal tomato pathogen Cladosporium fulvum, and a hypersensitive response (HR) to C. fulvum-derived race-specific elicitors. Several Cf genes, including Cf-4 and Cf-9, are members of the highly homologous Hcr9 (homologues of C.

Rearrangements in the Cf-9 disease resistance gene cluster of wild tomato have resulted in three genes that mediate Avr9 responsiveness.

Cf resistance genes in tomato confer resistance to the fungal leaf pathogen Cladosporium fulvum. Both the well-characterized resistance gene Cf-9 and the related 9DC gene confer resistance to strains of C. fulvum that secrete the Avr9 protein and originate from the wild tomato species Lycopersicon pimpinellifolium.