PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Christina L. Wiesmann
AU  - Yue Zhang
AU  - Morgan Alford
AU  - David Thoms
AU  - Melanie Dostert
AU  - Andrew Wilson
AU  - Daniel Pletzer
AU  - Robert E. W. Hancock
AU  - Cara H. Haney
TI  - The ColR/S two-component system is a conserved determinant of host association across <em>Pseudomonas</em> species
AID  - 10.1101/2021.12.14.472530
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.12.14.472530
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/12/15/2021.12.14.472530.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/12/15/2021.12.14.472530.full
AB  - Members of the bacterial genus Pseudomonas form mutualistic, commensal and pathogenic associations with diverse hosts. The prevalence of host association across the genus suggests that symbiosis may be a conserved ancestral trait and that distinct symbiotic lifestyles may be more recently evolved. Here we show that the ColR/S two-component system, part of the Pseudomonas core genome, is functionally conserved between Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Pseudomonas fluorescens. Using plant rhizosphere colonization and virulence in a murine abscess model, we show that colR is required for commensalism with plants and virulence in animals. Comparative transcriptomics revealed that the ColR regulon has diverged between P. aeruginosa and P. fluorescens and deleting components of the ColR regulon revealed strain-specific, but not hostspecific, requirements for ColR-dependent genes. Collectively, our results suggest that ColR/S allows Pseudomonas to sense and respond to a host, but that the ColR-regulon has diverged between Pseudomonas strains with distinct lifestyles.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.