Manipulation of plants immunity by beneficial microbes

Abstract

Plants interact with various microbes; some of them are pathogens, whereas others are benefic and make a symbiosis with the plants. The fine tuning of the immunity is crucial for the plants to adapt its response according to the nature of the microbes (pathogen or symbionte). Rhizobia and Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria are two important groups of bacteria, making symbiotic interaction with the plants. These microorganisms use different strategies to shut down the immune plants responses and to make effective symbiosis. Here we have analyzed the different strategies describe in the literature and used by beneficial bacteria to evade from the immune responses during symbiosis. Moreover, we have investigated the conservation in selected rhizobia and PGPR strain of certain key genes used by the bacteria to shut down the plant immunity (the secretion system II and III). Our preliminary results indicate that the studied genes have evolved differently than the gene encoding the ribosome subunit 16, which is used as a key marker for the analysis of the evolution of the bacteria.