Agricultural Microbes Genome 2 Conference

Poster: Microbial Genome Sequencing/Programs
P01_01.html

FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS OF THE INTERACTIONS OF TOMATO AND PSEUDOMONAS SYRINGAE PV. TOMATO DC3000

¹ Cornell University, Department of Plant Pathology, Ithaca, NY 14853-4203

² University of Nebraska, Plant Science Initiative, Beadle Center for Genetic Research, Lincoln, NE 68588-0665

³ The Institute for Genomic Research, 9712 Medical Center Dr., Rockville, MD 20850

⁴ Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Tower Rd., Ithaca, NY 14853-1801

⁵ University of Missouri, Department of Plant Pathology, Columbia, MO 65211

⁶ Kansas State University, Department of Plant Pathology, Manhattan, KS 66502-5502

Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato DC3000 is an important model in molecular plant pathology because it is a genetically tractable pathogen of the well-studied hosts tomato and Arabidopsis, its interactions with plants appear representative of many common bacterial and fungal pathogens, and its parasitic abilities are largely based on (an unknown number of) effector proteins that are injected into plant cells by a type III secretion system and whose identification and analysis should provide the basis for orderly dissection of molecular processes underlying pathogenesis. We are pursuing a multi-institutional project sponsored by the NSF Plant Genome Research Program to (i) characterize the P. s. tomato DC3000 genomic sequence and compare it with the genomes of P. aeruginosa and P. putida; (ii) identify and characterize P. s. tomato type III-delivered effectors, novel virulence systems, and global regulators of virulence; (iii) characterize the interactions of tomato and P. s. tomato through microarray analysis and bioinformatics-compatible cell biological assays and functional genomics tests; and (iv) develop a community-oriented plant-microbe interaction database to support functional genomics of interorganismal interactions and educational outreach initiatives. The P. s. tomato DC3000 genome will be sequenced by The Institute for Genomic Research, and once 3X coverage is achieved, the unfinished sequences will be searchable by BLAST at websites at TIGR (http://www.tigr.org/tdb/mdb/mdb.html) and GenBank (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Microb_blast/unfinishedgenome.html). Progress on this project, which began September 2000, will be presented.