Research Updates – Coronatine in nonhost disease resistance in plants

Pseudomonas syringae is the most widespread bacterial pathogen in plants. Several strains of P. syringae produce the phytotoxin coronatine, which inhibits plant defense responses and contributes to disease symptom development.

In a well-received PeerJ study “Coronatine inhibits stomatal closure and delays hypersensitive response cell death induced by nonhost bacterial pathogens” published last year, Dr Seonghee Lee—Senior Research Associate at The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation—found that coronatine inhibits stomatal closure in tomato epidermal peels and delays hypersensitive response cell death induced by nonhost bacterial pathogens, such as P. syringae pv. tabaci.

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Dr Lee told us that his peers strongly supported this publication: “Since coronatine function is still not fully understood, my study was very helpful for researchers who work on plant-microbe interactions, and many of them have read the paper. This publication is now being cited and I can definitively say that it has influenced others“.

As can be seen, this article has already been cited 6 times, it has been viewed almost 2,000 times, and the PDF has been downloaded almost 1,400 times. A high ratio of downloads to views means that a large proportion of readers are choosing to save the article for future study, indicating that it continues to make a significant impact in the field.

Dr Lee is now working on the characterization of the metabolites produced by P. syringae pv. tabaci and P. syringae pv. tomato T1 that suppress early plant defense responses in their host plants, tobacco and tomato. To reach this goal, he is using analytical technologies such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The identification of a novel bacterial metabolite produced by P. syringae pv. tabaci and P. syringae pv. tomato T1 will be very useful to better understand the structure and function of metabolites similar to coronatine in plants.