Study of phytopathogenic bacterial species in immune response of plants

Abstract

This project was proposed to evaluate the viability of bacteria-derived nanovesicles (BDNs) in eliciting host immune responses. Gram-negative bacteria were both chosen as their naturally released outer membrane vesicles were shown to be capable of eliciting host immune response in plant seedlings. Thus, a production protocol has been proposed in this report involving spin cup configuration and the extruder, that was tested to produce the mimetic vesicles termed bacteria-derived nanovesicles (BDNs) from phytopathogens, i.e., Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris and Pseudomonas syringae. In addition, optimization of the production protocol was also done to determine the best variables to produce these vesicles. Furthermore, the BDNs were tested to identify any type of interaction when exposed to Arabidopsis seedlings at various concentrations. The naturally extracted vesicles have been shown to either delay the disease by bacteria of their strain or even protect the plant from infection. Surprisingly, the BDNs did not show signs of any cross-protection as the seedlings appeared more diseased after infecting them with the opposite bacteria. Ultimately, an optimal protocol has been established that can result in production to reach a desirable amount of vesicle concentration but the interaction against the plant seedlings needs to be further investigated to identify the kind of reaction that is elicitated from the plant seedlings.