Molecular Pathogens 2024, Vol.15, No.5, 246-254 http://microbescipublisher.com/index.php/mp 250 repeats and calculate correlations between position weight matrices of potential target DNA sequences, respectively. These tools help infer functional and evolutionary relationships among TAL effectors (Pérez-Quintero et al., 2015). 5.3 Advances in genomic and transcriptomic techniques Advances in genomic and transcriptomic techniques have significantly enhanced our understanding of TAL effector activity and their impact on host plants. Comparative genomics and transcriptomics have been employed to analyze the complete repertoires of TAL effectors (TALomes) in different Xanthomonas strains, revealing conserved and variable TAL effectors and their contributions to virulence (Tran et al., 2018; Pérez-Quintero et al., 2023). RNA sequencing has been used to identify the full target repertoire of specific TAL effectors, providing insights into the differential activation of gene targets and the identification of candidate susceptibility genes 10. These techniques have also facilitated the discovery of new susceptibility genes and the validation of their roles in disease susceptibility through functional characterization using designer TAL effectors. 6 Case Studies on the Role of TAL Effectors in Legume Diseases 6.1 Xanthomonas-infected soybean: a study on tal effector targets In the context of soybean, Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. glycines employs TAL effectors to manipulate host gene expression, thereby facilitating infection and disease progression. A notable study identified Tal2a as a key effector in this interaction. Tal2a was shown to elicit a hypersensitive reaction (HR) in rice when delivered by X. axonopodis pv. glycines, indicating its potential role in triggering defense responses in soybean as well. The study revealed that Tal2a's activity is dose-dependent and involves the activation of multiple host genes, although no single gene was found to be solely responsible for HR. This suggests a complex interaction where Tal2a may target a network of genes to modulate host resistance and susceptibility (Figure 2) (Hummel et al., 2017; Peng et al., 2019). Figure 2 Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. glycines EB08 (Xag) and Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae PXO99A (Xoo) delivering Tal2a induce activation domain-dependent hypersensitive reaction (HR) in rice (Adopted from Hummel et al., 2017)
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