Abstract
Plant-pathogenic bacteria colonise their hosts using various strategies, exploiting both natural openings and wounds in leaves and roots. The vascular pathogen Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris (Xcc) enters its host through hydathodes, organs at the leaf margin involved in guttation. Subsequently, Xcc breaches the hydathode-xylem barrier and progresses into the xylem vessels causing systemic disease. To elucidate the mechanisms that underpin the different stages of an Xcc infection, a need exists to image bacterial progression in planta in a non-invasive manner. Here, we describe a phenotyping setup and Python image analysis pipeline for capturing 16 independent Xcc infections in Arabidopsis thaliana plants in parallel over time. The setup combines an RGB camera for imaging disease symptoms and an ultrasensitive CCD camera for monitoring bacterial progression inside leaves using bioluminescence. The method reliably quantified bacterial growth in planta for two bacterial species, that is, vascular Xcc and the mesophyll pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato (Pst). The camera resolution allowed Xcc imaging already in the hydathodes, yielding reproducible data for the first stages prior to the systemic infection. Data obtained through the image analysis pipeline was robust and validated findings from other bioluminescence imaging methods, while requiring fewer samples. Moreover, bioluminescence was reliably detected within 5 min, offering a significant time advantage over our previously reported method with light-sensitive films. Thus, this method is suitable to quantify the resistance level of a large number of Arabidopsis thaliana accessions and mutant lines to different bacterial strains in a non-invasive manner for phenotypic screenings.
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record; open copy licensed cc-by-nc. Read at the source ↗
The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 7
Claim · model-written summary
The setup captures 16 independent Xcc infections in Arabidopsis plants in parallel over time.
- Taxon
- Arabidopsis thaliana
Arabidopsis thalianae0 - Interactor
- Xcce0pathogen
- Outcome
- Xcc infectionse0
- Value
- 16 independent Xcc infectionse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“capturing 16 independent Xcc infections in Arabidopsis thaliana plants in parallel over time”
Claim · model-written summary
The method reliably quantified vascular Xcc growth in plants.
- Taxon
- Arabidopsis thalianaArabidopsis thalianae1
- Interactor
- Xcce0pathogen
- Outcome
- bacterial growth in plantae0
Not reportedComparatorValue
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The method reliably quantified bacterial growth in planta for two bacterial species, that is, vascular Xcc and the mesophyll pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato (Pst).”
e1“Arabidopsis thaliana plants”
Claim · model-written summary
The method reliably quantified growth of Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato in plants.
- Taxon
- Arabidopsis thalianaArabidopsis thalianae1
- Interactor
- Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato
Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomatoe0pathogen - Outcome
- bacterial growth in plantae0
Not reportedComparatorValue
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The method reliably quantified bacterial growth in planta for two bacterial species, that is, vascular Xcc and the mesophyll pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato (Pst).”
e1“Arabidopsis thaliana plants”
Claim · model-written summary
The camera imaged Xcc in hydathodes during early infection and yielded reproducible data.
- Taxon
- Arabidopsis thalianaArabidopsis thalianae1
- Organ / stage
- hydathodese0
- Interactor
- Xcce0pathogen
- Outcome
- Xcc imaging already in the hydathodese0
Not reportedComparatorValue
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“The camera resolution allowed Xcc imaging already in the hydathodes, yielding reproducible data for the first stages prior to the systemic infection.”
e1“Arabidopsis thaliana plants”
Claim · model-written summary
The image analysis data were robust and validated other bioluminescence imaging findings with fewer samples.
- Taxon
- Arabidopsis thalianaArabidopsis thalianae1
- Outcome
- Data obtained through the image analysis pipelinee0
- Direction
- fewere0
- Comparator
- other bioluminescence imaging methodse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Data obtained through the image analysis pipeline was robust and validated findings from other bioluminescence imaging methods, while requiring fewer samples.”
e1“Arabidopsis thaliana plants”
Claim · model-written summary
Bioluminescence detection within 5 min was faster than the earlier light-sensitive film method.
- Taxon
- Arabidopsis thalianaArabidopsis thalianae1
- Outcome
- bioluminescence was reliably detectede0
- Direction
- time advantagee0
- Value
- within 5 mine0
- Comparator
- our previously reported method with light-sensitive filmse0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“bioluminescence was reliably detected within 5 min, offering a significant time advantage over our previously reported method with light-sensitive films.”
e1“Arabidopsis thaliana plants”
Claim · model-written summary
The authors consider the method suitable for non-invasive resistance screening of Arabidopsis accessions and mutant lines.
- Taxon
- Arabidopsis thalianaArabidopsis thalianae0
- Material
- Arabidopsis thaliana accessions and mutant linese0
- Outcome
- quantify the resistance levele0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“this method is suitable to quantify the resistance level of a large number of Arabidopsis thaliana accessions and mutant lines to different bacterial strains in a non-invasive manner for phenotypic screenings.”