Quorum-Sensing Systems in the Plant Growth-Promoting Bacterium Paraburkholderia phytofirmans PsJN Exhibit Cross-Regulation and Are Involved in Biofilm Formation

Abstract

Quorum-sensing systems play important roles in host colonization and host establishment of Burkholderiales species. Beneficial Paraburkholderia species share a conserved quorum-sensing (QS) system, designated BraI/R, that controls different phenotypes. In this context, the plant growth-promoting bacterium Paraburkholderia phytofirmans PsJN possesses two different homoserine lactone QS systems BpI.1/R.1 and BpI.2/R.2 (BraI/R-like QS system). The BpI.1/R.1 QS system was previously reported to be important to colonize and produce beneficial effects in Arabidopsis thaliana plants. Here, we analyzed the temporal variations of the QS gene transcript levels in the wild-type strain colonizing plant roots. The gene expression patterns showed relevant differences in both QS systems compared with the wild-type strain in the unplanted control treatment. The gene expression data were used to reconstruct a regulatory network model of QS systems in P. phytofirmans PsJN, using a Boolean network model. Also, we examined the phenotypic traits and transcript levels of genes involved in QS systems, using P. phytofirmans mutants in homoserine lactone synthases genes. We observed that the BpI.1/R.1 QS system regulates biofilm formation production in strain PsJN and this phenotype was associated with the lower expression of a specific extracytoplasmic function sigma factor ecf26.1 gene (implicated in biofilm formation) in the bpI.1 mutant strain.