Plant and human pathogens have evolved disease factors to successfully exploit their respective hosts. Phytopathogens utilize specific determinants that help to breach reinforced cell walls and manipulate plant physiology to facilitate the disease process, while human pathogens use determinants for exploiting mammalian physiology and overcoming highly developed adaptive immune responses. Emerging research, however, has highlighted the ability of seemingly dedicated human pathogens to cause plant disease, and specialized plant pathogens to cause human disease. Such microbes represent interesting systems for studying the evolution of cross-kingdom pathogenicity, and the benefits and tradeoffs of exploiting multiple hosts with drastically different morphologies and physiologies. This review will explore cross-kingdom pathogenicity, where plants and humans are common hosts. We illustrate that while cross-kingdom pathogenicity appears to be maintained, the directionality of host association (plant to human, or human to plant) is difficult to determine. Cross-kingdom human pathogens, and their potential plant reservoirs, have important implications for the emergence of infectious diseases.

We present the first high-resolution determination of transcriptome architecture in the priority pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii. Pooled RNA from 16 laboratory conditions was used for differential RNA-seq (dRNA-seq) to identify 3731 transcriptional start sites (TSS) and 110 small RNAs, including the first identification in A. baumannii of sRNAs encoded at the 3′ end of coding genes. Most sRNAs were conserved among sequenced A. baumannii genomes, but were only weakly conserved or absent in other Acinetobacter species. Single nucleotide mapping of TSS enabled prediction of −10 and −35 RNA polymerase binding sites and revealed an unprecedented base preference at position +2 that hints at an unrecognized transcriptional regulatory mechanism. To apply functional genomics to the problem of antimicrobial resistance, we dissected the transcriptional regulation of the drug efflux pump responsible for chloramphenicol resistance, craA. The two craA promoters were both down-regulated >1000-fold when cells were shifted to nutrient limited medium. This conditional down-regulation of craA expression renders cells sensitive to chloramphenicol, a highly effective antibiotic for the treatment of multidrug resistant infections. An online interface that facilitates open data access and visualization is provided as ‘AcinetoCom’ (http://bioinf.gen.tcd.ie/acinetocom/).

The type III secretion system (T3SS) is an extracellular apparatus used by many Gram-negative bacteria to deliver effector proteins directly into plant and animal cells, thereby facilitating host-specific association. Strains of the enterobacterial genus, Pantoea, have been isolated from a wide variety of hosts, including plants, insects, and humans, yet it is unclear whether the T3SS may be involved in these associations. In this study, we use comparative genomics and phylogenetic methods to examine the origin and distribution of T3SSs in 35 sequenced environmental and clinical strains of Pantoea. We began our analysis by examining the distribution of the previously characterized plant cell-specific PSI-1 and animal cell-specific PSI-2 of the plant pathogenic Pantoea stewartii subsp. stewartii DC283 (PstDC283), and showed that both had a somewhat limited distribution. Our analysis, however, identified two variants of a unique plant cell-specific T3SS (PSI-1a and PSI-1b) in six Pantoea strains, including a clinical isolate. Our genome analysis of PstDC283 also identified a third T3SS that we named PSI-3, which has a similar genetic content and organization to the Salmonella, animal cell-specific SPI-2 system. Phylogenetic analysis of all three systems suggests that the PSI-1 system has been inherited vertically, whereas the newly identified PSI-1a and PSI-1b systems have been acquired independently from other genera within the Enterobacteriaceae. PSI-2 appears to have been acquired horizontally as far back as the Erwinia/Pantoea common ancestor, with evidence of more recent horizontal acquisition of the PSI-3 system. Our results suggest that Pantoea is a relatively old plant pathogen that has lost and subsequently regained different plant-associated T3SSs. This work has broad implications for understanding the host-associating capacity of Pantoea strains, and reveals the propensity for Pantoea isolates to exchange pathogenicity determinants with human-pathogenic members of the Enterobacteriaceae.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) tumours that lack expression of oestrogen, and progesterone receptors, and do not overexpress the HER2 receptor represent the most aggressive breast cancer subtype, which is characterised by the resistance to therapy in frequently relapsing tumours and a high rate of patient mortality. This is likely due to the resistance of slowly proliferating tumour-initiating cells (TICs), and understanding molecular mechanisms that control TICs behaviour is crucial for the development of effective therapeutic approaches. Here, we present our novel findings, indicating that an intrinsically catalytically inactive member of the Eph group of receptor tyrosine kinases, EPHB6, partially suppresses the epithelial–mesenchymal transition in TNBC cells, while also promoting expansion of TICs. Our work reveals that EPHB6 interacts with the GRB2 adapter protein and that its effect on enhancing cell proliferation is mediated by the activation of the RAS-ERK pathway, which allows it to elevate the expression of the TIC-related transcription factor, OCT4. Consistent with this, suppression of either ERK or OCT4 activities blocks EPHB6-induced pro-proliferative responses. In line with its ability to trigger propagation of TICs, EPHB6 accelerates tumour growth, potentiates tumour initiation and increases TIC populations in xenograft models of TNBC. Remarkably, EPHB6 also suppresses tumour drug resistance to DNA-damaging therapy, probably by forcing TICs into a more proliferative, drug-sensitive state. In agreement, patients with higher EPHB6 expression in their tumours have a better chance for recurrence-free survival. These observations describe an entirely new mechanism that governs TNBC and suggest that it may be beneficial to enhance EPHB6 action concurrent with applying a conventional DNA-damaging treatment, as it would decrease drug resistance and improve tumour elimination.

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