Thread by @SuayibUestuen

Excited to share our first research paper from #theustunlab on "how a bacterial effector counteracts host autophagy by promoting the degradation of an autophagy component" published in @embojournal by @JiaxuanLeong et al. 🧵(1/8)

embopress.org/doi/full/10.15…

Here we show that Xanthomonas is blocking autophagy in an effector-dependent manner to promote disease 🧵(2/8)

We identify that bacterial effector XopL, previously identified as an E3 ligase, is responsible to dampen #autophagy in plants 🧵(3/8)

Using a Y2H screen (and also in subsequent proteomics experiments) we identify that XopL interacts with autophagy component SH3P2 in planta, resulting to diminished protein levels of SH3P2, which is partially beneficial for bacterial colonization 🧵 (4/8)

Degradation of SH3P2 by XopL is mediated by the proteasome and with the help of @MargotRaffeiner we discovered that XopL directly ubiquitinates SH3P2. Hence, XopL's E3 ligase activity is required to dampen #autophagy 🧵 (5/8)

However, we realized that XopL, although being able to attenuate the autophagy response, is very instable. XopL undergoes self-ubiquitination in vitro & in planta, and associates with NBR1/Joka2.Thus, NBR1/Joka2 is able to degrade XopL in a process we termed #effectorphagy🧵(6/8)

In the end our model is describing the arms race btw. plants and bacteria. On the one hand we have #effectorphagy #xenophagy trying to degrade virulence factor XopL and on the other hand we have the very same effector being able to counteract this to promote disease 🧵 (7/8)

I wanna thank @JiaxuanLeong for her heroic effort in this paper,@MargotRaffeiner,@LanginGautier, @minina_alyona,@HafrenLab,@ppandey0510,@Tolga_Bzkrt, @DanielHofius70& all the other co-authors, the reviewers, funding @dfg_public #EmmyNoether, #theustunlab and @embojournal 🧵 (8/8)