Elsevier

Microbiological Research

Volume 238, September 2020, 126500
Microbiological Research

The essential genome of Ralstonia solanacearum

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micres.2020.126500Get rights and content
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Abstract

Ralstonia solanacearum is a scientifically/economically important plant pathogenic bacterium. The plant disease caused by R. solanacearum causes huge economic losses, and efficient control measures for the disease remain limited. To gain a better system-level understanding of R. solanacearum, we generated a near-saturated transposon insertion library of R. solanacearum GMI1000 with approximately 240,000 individual insertion mutants. Transposon sequencing (Tn-seq) allowed the mapping of 70.44%–80.96% of all potential insertion sites of the mariner C9 transposase in the genome of R. solanacearum and the identification of 465 genes essential for the growth of R. solanacearum in rich medium. Functional and comparative analyses of essential genes revealed that many basic physiological and biochemical processes such as transcription differ between R. solanacearum and other bacteria. A comparative analysis of essential genes also suggested that 34 genes might be essential only for Ralstonia group bacteria, whereas another 16 essential genes are unique to Ralstonia, providing high-priority candidate targets for developing R. solanacearum-specific drugs.

Keywords

Essential gene
Essential genome
Plant pathogenic bacteria
Ralstonia solanacearum
Transposon mutagenesis
Tn-seq

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1

These authors contributed equally to this work.