Particle bombardment-mediated transient expression to identify localization signals in plant disease resistance proteins and target sites for the proteolytic activity of pathogen effectors

Abstract

Plant pathogens, including fungi, oomycetes, bacteria, aphids, and nematodes, produce a variety of effector proteins to counter plant disease resistance mechanisms. After delivery into the cytosol of the plant cell, effectors may target proteins localized to different compartments within the plant cell. Plants, in turn, have evolved disease resistance (R) proteins to recognize the action of effectors. Elucidation of the subcellular localization of pathogen effectors, the plant proteins they target, and plant disease resistance proteins is essential to fully understand their interactions during pathogen challenge. In recent years, expression of fluorescent protein fusions has been widely used to determine the subcellular localization of plant proteins and pathogen effectors. Use of fluorescent proteins enables researchers to monitor the dynamic behavior of proteins in living cells. Among various methods available for the introduction of genes into plant cells, particle bombardment-mediated transient expression is the most rapid method suitable for both the identification of localization signals in proteins of interest and their dissection via amino acid substitutions generated using site-directed mutagenesis. This chapter describes a rapid procedure for particle bombardment-mediated transient expression in leaf epidermal cells. This method is also applicable to detection of pathogen effector protease activities directed against target proteins in the plant cell and analysis of protease recognition sites within these target proteins.