“Understanding mechanisms of pathogenesis are essential to providing new tools that could be used to engineer disease resistance in plants.”

Our paper describes the complete genome sequence and annotation of a predominant model organism for studying plant-pathogen interactions. It is utilized heavily in two host systems, Arabidopsis and tomato, which have well-developed genomic and genetic resources. On tomato, it is the causal agent of bacterial speck disease which is a major problem for tomato growers.

The paper does not describe a new methodology or discovery. It provides a comprehensive inventory of the gene repertoire of this plant pathogen. Consequently, it is a landmark paper for scientists who utilize this or related species in their research. Another important point is that the draft genome of this strain was made publicly available and was used by several research groups to develop methods for mining genes that encode virulence effector proteins. Effector proteins are injected by type III secretion systems into host cells by many plant and animal pathogens. This paper revealed the genomic arrangement of a large number of newly discovered effector genes.

Plants are constantly "at war" with pathogens. In agriculture, losses caused by plant pathogens are substantial, both in crop yield and in the costs of protecting crops against the pathogens. Understanding mechanisms of pathogenesis are essential to providing new tools that could be used to engineer disease resistance in plants. Using a model species such as Pseudomas syringae pv tomato DC3000 to thoroughly investigate pathogenesis, we will be able to begin to understand this process and identify key components that should be addressed in crop species.

This project was funded by the National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research Program and was led by Alan Collmer of Cornell University. I have a background in plant pathology and utilized this bacterial isolate in my postdoctoral research. So I was delighted to participate when approached to sequence and annotate this isolate. Making the project even more appealing to me, the Principal Investigator, Alan Collmer, was not only my undergraduate instructor in plant pathology but also the person who sparked my interest in plant pathology and inspired me to pursue graduate training in this field.