Ralstonia solanacearum Tn-seq raw reads. Ralstonia pseudosolanacearum GMI1000

Ralstonia solanacearum is one of the top scientific/economic important plant pathogenic bacteria. The plant disease caused by R. solanacearum is responsible for huge economic losses, and efficient control measure for this plant disease is still limited. To gain a better systems-level understanding of R. solanacearum, we generated a near-saturated mariner-based transposon insertion library in R. solanacearum GMI1000 with approximately 240,000 individual insertion mutants. Using transposon sequencing (Tn-seq), 70.44%~80.96% of all the mariner C9 transposase potential insertion sites have been mapped and 465 genes were identified as essential for the growth under the optimal condition. Functional analysis and comparative analysis of essential genes revealed that many basic physiological and biochemical processes such as the transcription are different in R. solanacearum than in other bacteria. Essential genes comparative analysis also suggested that 34 genes might be essential only for Ralstonia group bacteria and that 16 essential genes were only found in Ralstonia group bacteria, providing high-priority candidate targets for developing R. solanacearum unique drugs.