TITLE:
Bioinformatic Analysis of Potential Pathogenicity Effectors of Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, Causal Agent of Citrus Huanglongbing
AUTHORS:
Felipe Roberto Flores-de la Rosa, Cynthia Guadalupe Rodríguez-Quibrera, Cristian Matilde-Hernández, Ricardo Santillán-Mendoza
KEYWORDS:
Effectors, Proteins, Function Prediction, Gen Ontology, Domains, Citrus Greening
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.11 No.8,
August
25,
2020
ABSTRACT: Huanglongbing (HLB) or citrus
greening is currently the most important citrus disease, caused by the
bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter
asiaticus (CLas). The impossibility
of isolating it causes understanding its pathogenic mechanisms to be a
complicated task. Recent studies identified 16 proteins with the signal peptide
needed to be secreted in the plant and cause the disease. The present study
aims to perform a bioinformatic analysis of these proteins with the function prediction
approach by gene ontology (GO) and the detection of conserved domains. It was
observed that of the 16 proteins analyzed not all are found in different
infective strains reported in the literature. The GO analysis allowed us to
relate different proteins with the biological process of energy and pathogenic
activity, especially CLIBASIA_03315 and CLIBASIA_05115, respectively. The
domain analysis allowed the observation of a β-CA domain, tentatively related to the damage caused
to the chloroplast and a PAAR domain associated with the T6SS secretory system.
Our results provide information on the possible function of potential
pathogenicity effectors in CLas.