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Updated: Mar 31, 2026

Using a Bacterial Pathogen to Probe for Cellular and Organismic-level Host Responses
Published on: February 22, 2019
The trans-kingdom identification of negative regulators of pathogen hypervirulence
Neil A Brown1, Martin Urban1, Kim E Hammond-Kosack2
1Department of Plant Biology and Crop Science, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Herts AL5 2JQ, UK.
Abstract:
Modern society and global ecosystems are increasingly under threat from pathogens, which cause a plethora of human, animal, invertebrate and plant diseases. Of increasing concern is the trans-kingdom tendency for increased pathogen virulence that is beginning to emerge in natural, clinical and agricultural settings. The study of pathogenicity has revealed multiple examples of convergently evolved virulence mechanisms. Originally described as rare, but increasingly common, are interactions where a single gene deletion in a pathogenic species causes hypervirulence. This review utilised the pathogen-host interaction database (www.PHI-base.org) to identify 112 hypervirulent mutations from 37 pathogen species, and subsequently interrogates the trans-kingdom, conserved, molecular, biochemical and cellular themes that cause hypervirulence. This study investigates 22 animal and 15 plant pathogens including 17 bacterial and 17 fungal species. Finally, the evolutionary significance and trans-kingdom requirement for negative regulators of hypervirulence and the implication of pathogen hypervirulence and emerging infectious diseases on society are discussed.
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