Microbial manipulation of auxins and cytokinins in plants

Abstract

Microbial associations with plants are crucial for the survival of both the partners. Beside other ways of establishing such associations, phytohormones enjoy a key role in plant-microbe interactions from initial dialog between the two to the establishment of a viable partnership. Cytokinins (CKs) and IAA are among the five classical groups of phytohormones implicated in plant immune response, early signaling, and deciding the fate of interactions between plant and microbes. Here we describe a method to study modulation of Cks and IAA in plant under the influence of a pathogenic bacterium, Pseudomonas syringae tomato DC3000. A method for inoculating bacteria on host plant and subsequent determination of Cks and IAA through HPLC-ESI-MS/MS is described.