Harnessing Defense for Resilience
How Pathogen-Induced Immunity Primes Plants for Cold and Heat Tolerance
The Mode of Action of Type III Effectors: AopW1 in Acidovorax citrulli (Bacterial Fruit Blotch Pathogen)
These animations present the process of studying the mode of action of the Type III Secretion System, providing a conceptual overview of AopW1’s role in Acidovorax citrulli pathogenicity, from bacterial inoculation through effector expression to colony counting. AopW1 is secreted via the Type III Secretion System (T3SS) directly into plant cells, where it disrupts the actin cytoskeleton and other key cellular components to undermine plant defenses. Two natural variants of AopW1 differ in a hypervariable region, shaping their toxicity and influencing host specificity: the highly cytotoxic form in Group I strains primarily affects melons, while the variant in Group II strains is more adapted to watermelons.
