The effect of expression of the Agrobacterium tumefaciens virulence protein VirE3 on gene expression in Arabidopsis thaliana.

During Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of plant cells a part of the tumour inducing plasmid, the T-DNA, is integrated into the host genome. In addition, a number of virulence proteins are translocated into the host cell. The virulence protein VirE3 binds to the Arabidopsis thaliana pBrp protein, a plant-specific general transcription factor of the TFIIB family. To study a possible role of VirE3 in transcriptional regulation, we stably expressed virE3 in A. thaliana under control of a tamoxifen-inducible promoter. By RNA sequencing we showed that upon expression of virE3 the RNA levels of 607 genes were increased more than three-fold and those of 132 genes decreased more than three-fold. Overall design: An Arabidopsis line expressing virE3 and a control line were selected and the RNA from tamoxifen-induced and non-induced plantlets was analysed by Illumina RNA sequencing.