pseudomonas fluorescens and Myzus persicae Raw sequence reads

Pseudomonas fluorescens PpR24 is able to orally infect and kill the insecticide-resistant green-peach aphid (Myzus persicae). We employed dual host-pathogen RNA-Seq to examine transcriptomic changes occurring in both the bacterium and aphid during infection. This approach allowed us to identify major physiological changes in the bacterium, including the induction of several insecticidal toxins. In contrast, the aphid showed very little differential gene expression, possibly due to the late infection stage or because the bacterial infection rapidly subdues the insect immune response. Deletion of candidate virulence genes, identified from the RNA-Seq analysis, enabled us to validate the role of key toxins employed by the bacterium to kill the aphid. This study thus provides novel insight into the mechanism used by a plant-associated bacterium to rapidly kill an aphid.