Discovery and functional profiling of Phytophthora capsici RXLR effectors in pepper plants
G. LIM (1), S. Oh (1) (1) Department of Applied Biology/Chungnam National University, South Korea

The oomycete Phytophthora capsici causes phytophthora blight of chilli pepper and is the most destructive pathogen of solanaceous plants. P. capsici establishes parasitic colonization of pepper plants by modulating host cell defenses through an array of virulence effectors. However, the biology of P. capsici effectors is poorly understood but some progress has been made recently. These effectors are the so-called RXLR proteins that function inside plant cells. In this study, we performed functional profiling of 56 genes of the RXLR effectors of P. capsici. These genes were amplified from a variety of P. capsici isolates and cloned into ligation-independent cloning vector for transient in planta expression. So far, one of P. capsici RXLR effector, PcRDK-38 was found to induce the hypersensitive responses (HR) in various pepper cultivars. These findings provide further evidence that RXLR effector plays important role in modulation of plant response by P. capsici. Current work is focusing on functional analyses of the selected RXLR genes to determine their roles in virulence and/or avirulence in P. capsici-pepper plant interactions.

Abstract Number: P7-183
Session Type: Poster