Recent Developments in Social Network Disruption Approaches to Manage Bacterial Plant Diseases

Abstract

Biotic stresses are one of the major constraints to enhance the agricultural production. Among various biotic stresses, bacterial plant pathogens are often difficult to manage. Further, development of antibiotics resistance in these pathogens led to the emergence of more virulent multidrug resistant strains and hence the management of bacterial pathogens manifolds complex. To counter these pathogens, integration of conventional management practices with modern strategies have emerged as an attractive alternative in mitigating biotic stresses in plants. The community behaviour of bacterial pathogen has revealed the importance of quorum sensing network to communicate among population for effective strategies such as development of antibiotic resistance, phenotypic response including bioluminescence, biofilm formation, biosynthesis of secondary metabolites and even display of virulence. Several plant pathogens including Pantoea, Erwinia, Ralstonia and Agrobacterium rely on this social network during their attack on the host plants and cause infections. Therefore, targeting quorum sensing cascade through quorum quenching which is known to impose low evolutionary pressure on the bacterial population, can be an effective alternative. It involves enzyme mediated targeting of network associate molecules known as signals (QS) through the application of QS inhibitors (QSI) and lytic enzymes. Simultaneously, recent development in CRISPR-Cas system has been used to modify the receptors of susceptible host plant during interaction of bacterial pathogen’s signalling molecules during infection. Here, in this review, we have discussed the basics of social network and how it can be targeted using their inhibitors and gene editing approaches to mitigate bacterial diseases in plants.