ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2014
Host plant peptides elicit a transcriptional response to control the Sinorhizobium meliloti cell cycle during symbiosis.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 78 papers.
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Who cites it
78 citing papers in PubMed, 157 citations in OpenAlex.
- ESN3, a nodule-specific small peptide essential for symbiotic nitrogen fixation in Medicago truncatula.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Engineering Symbiotic Nitrogen Fixation for Agriculture: Predominant Role of Host Plants and Fine-Tuning Regulation.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Developmental fates and N2-fixing efficiency of terminally-differentiated versus undifferentiated bacteroids from legume nodules.Plant physiology · 2026Article
- BacA(SbmA) importer of legume symbiotic NCR peptides: Protein architecture, function, and evolutionary implications.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Article
- A plant-derived antimicrobial peptide with multiple mechanisms of action exhibiting antibacterial and antibiofilm activities comparable to or superior to polymyxin B.Current research in microbial sciences · 2026Article
- Article
- Exploiting peptide chirality and transport to dissect the complex mechanism of action of host peptides on bacteria.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
- Exploiting Peptide Chirality and Transport to Dissect the Complex Mechanism of Action of Host Peptides on Bacteria.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Beyond Motility: A Multiparametric Fitness Assay Framework to Evaluate Anthelmintics inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Protein import into bacterial endosymbionts and evolving organelles.The FEBS journal · 2025Review
- Article
- The Small Key to the Treasure Chest: Endogenous Plant Peptides Involved in Symbiotic Interactions.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- TheJournal of bacteriology · 2024Article
- Article
- Exploring the role of symbiotic modifier peptidases in the legume - rhizobium symbiosis.Archives of microbiology · 2024Review
- Signaling in Legume-Rhizobia Symbiosis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- A sensor histidine kinase from a plant-endosymbiont bacterium restores the virulence of a mammalian intracellular pathogen.Microbial pathogenesis · 2023Article
- Dual RNA-Seq Analysis Pinpoints a Balanced Regulation between Symbiosis and Immunity inInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- A protease and a lipoprotein jointly modulate the conserved ExoR-ExoS-ChvI signaling pathway critical in Sinorhizobium meliloti for symbiosis with legume hosts.PLoS genetics · 2023Article
18 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The α-proteobacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti establishes a chronic intracellular infection during the symbiosis with its legume hosts. Within specialized host cells, S. meliloti differentiates into highly polyploid, enlarged nitrogen-fixing bacteroids. This differentiation is driven by host cells through the production of defensin-like peptides called "nodule-specific cysteine-rich" (NCR) peptides. Recent research has shown that synthesized NCR peptides exhibit antimicrobial activity at high concentrations but cause bacterial endoreduplication at sublethal concentrations. We leveraged synchronized S. meliloti populations to determine how treatment with a sublethal NCR peptide affects the cell cycle and physiology of bacteria at the molecular level. We found that at sublethal levels a representative NCR peptide specifically blocks cell division and antagonizes Z-ring function. Gene-expression profiling revealed that the cell division block was produced, in part, through the substantial transcriptional response elicited by sublethal NCR treatment that affected ∼15% of the genome. Expression of critical cell-cycle regulators, including ctrA, and cell division genes, including genes required for Z-ring function, were greatly attenuated in NCR-treated cells. In addition, our experiments identified important symbiosis functions and stress responses that are induced by sublethal levels of NCR peptides and other antimicrobial peptides. Several of these stress-response pathways also are found in related α-proteobacterial pathogens and might be used by S. meliloti to sense host cues during infection. Our data suggest a model in which, in addition to provoking stress responses, NCR peptides target intracellular regulatory pathways to drive S. meliloti endoreduplication and differentiation during symbiosis.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.