Tomato Root Transformation Followed by Inoculation with Ralstonia Solanacearum for Straightforward Genetic Analysis of Bacterial Wilt Disease

Summary

Here, we present a versatile method for tomato root transformation followed by inoculation with Ralstonia solanacearum to perform straightforward genetic analysis for the study of bacterial wilt disease.

Abstract

Ralstonia solanacearum is a devastating soil borne vascular pathogen that can infect a large range of plant species, causing an important threat to agriculture. However, the Ralstonia model is considerably underexplored in comparison to other models involving bacterial plant pathogens, such as Pseudomonas syringae in Arabidopsis. Research targeted to understanding the interaction between Ralstonia and crop plants is essential to develop sustainable solutions to fight against bacterial wilt disease but is currently hindered by the lack of straightforward experimental assays to characterize the different components of the interaction in native host plants. In this scenario, we have developed a method to perform genetic analysis of Ralstonia infection of tomato, a natural host of Ralstonia. This method is based on Agrobacterium rhizogenes-mediated transformation of tomato roots, followed by Ralstonia soil-drenching inoculation of the resulting plants, containing transformed roots expressing the construct of interest. The versatility of the root transformation assay allows performing either gene overexpression or gene silencing mediated by RNAi. As a proof of concept, we used this method to show that RNAi-mediated silencing of SlCESA6 in tomato roots conferred resistance to Ralstonia. Here, we describe this method in detail, enabling genetic approaches to understand bacterial wilt disease in a relatively short time and with small requirements of equipment and plant growth space.

Introduction

Ralstonia solanacearum, the causal agent of bacterial wilt disease, is a devastating soil borne vascular pathogen with a worldwide distribution that can infect a large range of plant species, including potato, tomato, tobacco, banana, pepper and eggplant, among others^1,2. Yield losses caused by Ralstonia can reach 80-90% of production in tomato, potato or banana, depending on cultivar, climate, soil and other factors³. However, the Ralstonia model is considerably underexplored in comparison to other models involving bacterial plant pathogens, such as Pseud....

Protocol

NOTE: Important parts of this method involve handling plant materials in vitro, and therefore it is important to keep sterile conditions during all these procedures, including the visualization of DsRed fluorescence. During all the transformation process, tomato seedlings grow at 25−28 °C and 16 h/8 h light/dark (130 µmol photons m^-2s^-1 light). Plates are sealed with micropore tape in order to facilitate gas exchange and transpiration.

1. Preparation of tomato plants and Agrobacterium rhizogenes

1. Sterilize tomato seeds (Solanum lycopersicum cv. Moneymaker, ....

Results

Figure 5 shows the development of disease symptoms of tomato plants with roots transformed with an empty vector (EV), and plants with roots transformed with an RNAi construct targeting SlCESA6 (Solyc02g072240). The disease index data (Figure 5A) are collected from the same experimental unit (each plant) over time according to an arbitrary scale from 0 to 4, and do not follow a Gaussian distribut.......

Discussion

Ralstonia solanacearum poses an important threat to agriculture; however, its interaction with natural hosts of agricultural importance is still poorly understood compared with other bacterial pathogens, especially in crop plant species. In most cases, genetic analysis is hindered by the time and expenses required to genetically modify host plants. To address this problem and facilitate genetic analysis of R. solanacearum infection in tomato, we have developed an easy method based on Agrobacterium r.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
90 mm square Petri-dishes
Agar powder	Sigma-Aldrich
Bacto peptone	BD (Becton and Dickinson)
Casamino acids	Sigma-Aldrich
Filter paper
In Vivo Plant Imaging System NightShade LB 985	Berthold Technologies
Jiffy pots	Jiffy Products International A.S.
Micropore tape	3M
Murashige and Skoog medium (M519)	Phytotechlab
Pindstrup substrate	Pindstrup Mosebrug A/S
Scalpel and blade
Sodium hypochlorite	Sigma-Aldrich
Sterile clean bench
Tweezers
Wahtman paper	Wahtman International Ltd. Maldstone
Yeast extract	OXOID