An Arabidopsis and tomato mesophyll protoplast system for fast identification of early MAMP-triggered immunity-suppressing effectors.

Transient expression in plant mesophyll protoplasts allows rapid characterisation of gene functions in vivo in a simplified and synchronized manner without bias due to the use of bacteria-based gene or protein delivery systems. It offers the possibility to test whether microbial effectors can subvert early events of plant immune signaling that are activated upon recognition of Microbe-Associated Molecular Patterns (MAMPs), the so-called MAMP-triggered immunity (MTI). Here, we describe the isolation and transfection with effector genes of Arabidopsis thaliana and Solanum lycopersicum mesophyll protoplasts, the use of a non-invasive luciferase reporter assay and a simple method to detect activated Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases (MAPKs) to identify and study, in a medium-throughput manner, new effectors suppressing early signal transduction events of MTI.