Table Of ContentCurrent Topics in Microbiology and Immunology
Stanton B. Gelvin Editor
Agrobacterium
Biology
From Basic Science to Biotechnology
Current Topics in Microbiology
and Immunology
Volume 418
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Stanton B. Gelvin
Editor
Agrobacterium Biology
From Basic Science to Biotechnology
Responsible series editor: Klaus Palme
123
Editor
Stanton B. Gelvin
Department ofBiological Sciences
PurdueUniversity
West Lafayette, IN, USA
ISSN 0070-217X ISSN 2196-9965 (electronic)
CurrentTopics inMicrobiology andImmunology
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Preface
Agrobacterium may best be known as a genus of bacteria used for transferring
genes to plants. Indeed, the use of Agrobacterium for plant genetic transformation
forms the basis of the modern agricultural biotechnology industry, as well as a
commonly used platform for plant basic research. However, the importance of
Agrobacterium extends far beyond its use as a “gene jockeying” tool.
Agrobacterium can be a serious pathogen of vineyards, orchards for apples,
stonefruits, and nut trees, and nurseries, especially when cultivation requires
grafting, pruning, or in vitro propagation. The appearance of crown galls, a
tumorousdiseasecausedbymanystrainsofAgrobacterium,canseriouslydecrease
yields or profits because of regulatory restrictions on the movement of infected
plant material.
Agrobacterium is also a model for plant molecular, cellular, and evolutionary
biology,aswellaspathogenesisandbacterialecology.TheAgrobacteriumTypeIV
SecretionSystem(T4SS)servesasthemodelforT4SSsofmanyhumanandanimal
pathogenic bacteria, and components of those cognate T4SSs often use the
Agrobacterium virB nomenclature. The Agrobacterium Type VI Secretion System
(T6SS) was among the first described, and serves as a model for inter-bacterial
warfare.T-DNAtransferfromAgrobacterium(anditscloserelatives)toplantsand
fungi represents the only example of extant horizontal gene transfer between
prokaryotesandeukaryotes,andthepresenceofT-DNAinthegenomesofseveral
plant species suggests that ancient horizontal gene transfer events may have
influenced plant growth and/or developmentalprocesses. This volume describesin
detail these and other aspects of Agrobacterium biology.
The study of Agrobacterium taxonomy and ecology has undergone a revital-
ization. As discussed in the chapter by Gan and Savka, whole genome sequencing
ofmanymembersoftheRhizobeaceaehasindicatedthatmanyalphaproteobacteria
formerlydesignatedAgrobacteriumaremorecloselyrelatedtoothergenusgroups,
includingRhizobium.ThecloserelationshipamongmembersoftheAgrobacterium
and Ensifer/Sinorhizobium groups may be reflected by the ability of many of the
members, under the appropriate conditions, to transfer DNA to plants.
v
vi Preface
Agrobacterium species can live in many different environments, including the
soil,therhizospheresurroundingplantroots,andcrowngalltumors.Twochapters,
by Kuzmanovic et al., and Dessaux and Faure, describe how Agrobacterium can
utilize various compounds, including opines synthesized by tumors, to create and
enlarge their ecological niche.
A chapter by Figueroa-Cuilan and Brown describes the unusual mode of polar
cellulargrowthAgrobacteriumusespriortocelldivision,andsomeoftheproteins
involvedinthegrowthanddivisionprocesses.Twochapters,byMatthysseandby
Thompson et al., describe Agrobacterium motility and bacterial surface properties,
including the synthesis and composition of polysaccharides that may mediate
attachmentofAgrobacteriumtosyntheticandplantsurfaces.Withinthebacterium,
Biran et al. describe how Agrobacterium responds to heat stress, whereas Lee and
Wang discuss Agrobacterium noncoding RNAs and how they may regulate bac-
terialgeneexpression,includingthepossibleregulationofvirulencegeneinduction
preceding transformation.
Many Agrobacterium strains encode two important protein secretion systems:
TheTypeVISecretionSystem(T6SS)thatisusedforinter-bacterial“warfare”,and
thetypeIVsecretionsystemthatisusedtoconjugateplasmidsbetweenbacteriaor
to transfer T-DNA from Agrobacterium to host eukaryotic cells. Chapters by Wu
etal.,andLiandChristiepresentanoverviewofthesetwoimportantsystemsused
by Agrobacterium to interact with other bacteria in a niche or to genetically
transform plants, respectively.
Agrobacterium is best known as an organism that can genetically transform
plants.Althoughtransformation-associatedprocessesoccurringinthebacteriumare
reasonablywellunderstood,relativelylittleisknownabouteventsthatoccurinthe
planthost.Threechaptersdiscussrecentworktounderstand theseplant-associated
events. Tu et al. describe some of the latest results regarding the trafficking of
virulenceproteins(andperhapsT-DNA)withintheplantcytoplasmastheyexitthe
bacterium and target the nucleus. Singer discusses models of T-DNA integration,
and Willig et al. describe the plant transcriptional response to Agrobacterium
infection. Hooykaas et al. compare and contrast Agrobacterium-mediated trans-
formation of plants with that of yeast and fungi.
Although Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) remain controversial, some
plantsarenaturallytransgenic.DiversemembersoftheNicotianafamily,aswellas
Ipomea (sweet potato) and Lineria, contain T-DNA from what must have been an
ancient Agrobacterium infection. Two chapters by Otten and Matveeva describe
this phenomenon, and speculate on how such ancient transformation events may
have affected plant evolution and development.
Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is the most commonly used platform
for the generation of genetically modified plants, but other bacteria can also
transform plants when supplied with the appropriate components, including viru-
lence genes and T-DNA. Lacroix and Citovsky review what is known about
interkingdom horizontal gene transfer by bacterial species other than
Agrobacterium and speculate on how these other species can be used for
biotechnology purposes.
Preface vii
Transgenic plants have been generated using Agrobacterium-mediated trans-
formationsince1983.Withcontinuingresearch,Agrobacteriumhasbeenharnessed
forbiotechnologicalpurposes.Twochapters,bySardesaiandSubramanyamandby
AnandandJones, describe some ofthehistory associated withthedevelopmentof
thisgenetransfer platform. Theseauthorsdescribetheincreasingsophistication by
which scientists have used Agrobacterium for generating transgenic plants, and
how Agrobacterium is currently being used to deliver reagents for intricate and
precise plant genome modification.
I am grateful to all the authors for the considerable work they put into writing
these chapters, and to all my Agrobacterium colleagues and mentors who have, in
the space of only about 40 years, brought the understanding of Agrobacterium
biology so far.
West Lafayette, USA Stanton B. Gelvin
Contents
One More Decade of Agrobacterium Taxonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Han Ming Gan and Michael A. Savka
The Ecology of Agrobacterium vitis and Management of Crown Gall
Disease in Vineyards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Nemanja Kuzmanović, Joanna Puławska, Lingyun Hao
and Thomas J. Burr
Niche Construction and Exploitation by Agrobacterium: How to
Survive and Face Competition in Soil and Plant Habitats . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Y. Dessaux and D. Faure
Cell Wall Biogenesis During Elongation and Division in the Plant
Pathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Wanda M. Figueroa-Cuilan and Pamela J. B. Brown
Exopolysaccharides of Agrobacterium tumefaciens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Ann G. Matthysse
Function and Regulation of Agrobacterium tumefaciens Cell Surface
Structures that Promote Attachment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Melene A. Thompson, Maureen C. Onyeziri and Clay Fuqua
Coping with High Temperature: A Unique Regulation
in A. tumefaciens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Dvora Biran, Or Rotem, Ran Rosen and Eliora Z. Ron
Small Noncoding RNAs in Agrobacterium tumefaciens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Keunsub Lee and Kan Wang
The Agrobacterium Type VI Secretion System: A Contractile
Nanomachine for Interbacterial Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Chih-Feng Wu, Delaney A. Smith, Erh-Min Lai and Jeff H. Chang
ix
x Contents
The Agrobacterium VirB/VirD4 T4SS: Mechanism and Architecture
Defined Through In Vivo Mutagenesis and Chimeric Systems. . . . . . . . 233
Yang Grace Li and Peter J. Christie
Real-Time Trafficking of Agrobacterium Virulence Protein VirE2
Inside Host Cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Haitao Tu, Xiaoyang Li, Qinghua Yang, Ling Peng and Shen Q. Pan
The Mechanism of T-DNA Integration: Some Major Unresolved
Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Kamy Singer
TranscriptomeProfilingofPlantGenesinResponsetoAgrobacterium
tumefaciens-Mediated Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Christopher J. Willig, Kaixuan Duan and Zhanyuan J. Zhang
Agrobacterium-Mediated Transformation of Yeast and Fungi . . . . . . . . 349
Paul J. J. Hooykaas, G. Paul H. van Heusden, Xiaolei Niu,
M. Reza Roushan, Jalal Soltani, Xiaorong Zhang and Bert J.van der Zaal
The Agrobacterium Phenotypic Plasticity (Plast) Genes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
Léon Otten
Agrobacterium-Mediated Transformation in the Evolution
of Plants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
Tatiana V. Matveeva
Beyond Agrobacterium-Mediated Transformation: Horizontal
Gene Transfer from Bacteria to Eukaryotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
Benoît Lacroix and Vitaly Citovsky
Agrobacterium: A Genome-Editing Tool-Delivery System. . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Nagesh Sardesai and Subhashree Subramanyam
Advancing Agrobacterium-Based Crop Transformation and Genome
Modification Technology for Agricultural Biotechnology . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Ajith Anand and Todd J. Jones
Correction to: Agrobacterium: A Genome-Editing Tool-Delivery
System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E1
Nagesh Sardesai and Subhashree Subramanyam
