Suppression of Plant Immune Responses by the pv. NCPPB 3335 Type III Effector Tyrosine Phosphatases HopAO1 and HopAO2.

The effector repertoire of the olive pathogen pv. NCPPB 3335 includes two members of the HopAO effector family, one of the most diverse T3E families of the complex. The study described here explores the phylogeny of these dissimilar members, HopAO1 and HopAO2, among the complex and reveals their activities as immune defense suppressors.

Bacterial multispecies studies and microbiome analysis of a plant disease.

Although the great majority of bacteria found in nature live in multispecies communities, microbiological studies have focused historically on single species or competition and antagonism experiments between different species. Future directions need to focus much more on microbial communities in order to better understand what is happening in the wild. We are using olive knot disease as a model to study the role and interaction of multispecies bacterial communities in disease establishment/development.