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Peer-reviewedCC BYPLOS Biology

A broad-host-range Rhizobium rhizogenes strain enables transient expression across diverse crop species

  • Freddie King1
  • Juan Carlos Lopez-Agudelo2
  • Christopher Stephens3
  • May Htet Aung4
  • Tarhan Ibrahim5
  • Enoch Lok Him Yuen6
  • Ao Chen7
  • Nick Eilmann8
  • Saskia Jenkins
  • Cristina Vuolo
  • Yueh-Ning Swee
  • Wei-Jia Liu
8 more authors
  • Samuel Bruty
  • AmirAli Toghani
  • Chih-Horng Kuo
  • Erh-Min Lai
  • Jiorgos Kourelis
  • Lida Derevnina
  • Chih-Hang Wu
  • Tolga Bozkurt
8 affiliations
  1. 1Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
  2. 2Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
  3. 3Molecular and Biological Agricultural Sciences Program, Taiwan International Graduate Program, National Chung Hsing University and Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
  4. 4Graduate Institute of Biotechnology, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan
  5. 5Crop Science Centre, Department of Plant Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
  6. 6Department of Biochemistry and Metabolism, John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom
  7. 7The Sainsbury Laboratory, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom
  8. 8Biotechnology Center, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan
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Abstract

Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression has revolutionised plant research, enabling numerous landmark discoveries across diverse areas of plant biology. Yet this powerful approach remains largely confined to solanaceous species, leaving most economically important crop families without a comparable rapid assay platform. Here, we show that an engineered Rhizobium rhizogenes strain, AS109, mediates efficient transient expression across diverse dicot species spanning multiple taxonomic families, consistently outperforming commonly used laboratory agrobacterial strains. Leveraging the broad host range of AS109, we establish a suite of functional assays in faba bean (Vicia faba), including protein localisation, RNA interference-mediated gene silencing, cell-surface elicitor recognition screens, nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat receptor (NLR) activation, and infection cell biology at the host-pathogen interface. We further demonstrate that both singleton NLRs and sensor-helper NLR pairs from Solanaceae retain effector recognition and cell death activity when transferred into faba bean, establishing a rapid platform for evaluating cross-family transferability of disease-resistance genes. AS109 thus provides an accessible and versatile chassis for functional genomics in non-model crops, bridging the widening gap between hypothesis generation and experimental validation across diverse plant species.

Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression has revolutionized plant research, but is largely confined to solanaceous species. This study shows that the engineered Rhizobium rhizogenes strain AS109 allows efficient transient expression across diverse dicot crop species spanning multiple taxonomic families, including a suite of functional assays in faba bean.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{king2026broadhostrange,
  title = {{A broad-host-range Rhizobium rhizogenes strain enables transient expression across diverse crop species}},
  author = {Freddie King and Juan Carlos Lopez-Agudelo and Christopher Stephens and May Htet Aung and Tarhan Ibrahim and Enoch Lok Him Yuen and Ao Chen and Nick Eilmann and Saskia Jenkins and Cristina Vuolo and Yueh-Ning Swee and Wei-Jia Liu and Samuel Bruty and AmirAli Toghani and Chih-Horng Kuo and Erh-Min Lai and Jiorgos Kourelis and Lida Derevnina and Chih-Hang Wu and Tolga Bozkurt},
  journal = {PLOS Biology},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1371/journal.pbio.3004010},
  url = {https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3004010},
  note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - A broad-host-range Rhizobium rhizogenes strain enables transient expression across diverse crop species
AU  - Freddie King
AU  - Juan Carlos Lopez-Agudelo
AU  - Christopher Stephens
AU  - May Htet Aung
AU  - Tarhan Ibrahim
AU  - Enoch Lok Him Yuen
AU  - Ao Chen
AU  - Nick Eilmann
AU  - Saskia Jenkins
AU  - Cristina Vuolo
AU  - Yueh-Ning Swee
AU  - Wei-Jia Liu
AU  - Samuel Bruty
AU  - AmirAli Toghani
AU  - Chih-Horng Kuo
AU  - Erh-Min Lai
AU  - Jiorgos Kourelis
AU  - Lida Derevnina
AU  - Chih-Hang Wu
AU  - Tolga Bozkurt
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/01
JO  - PLOS Biology
DO  - 10.1371/journal.pbio.3004010
UR  - https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3004010
AB  - Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression has revolutionised plant research, enabling numerous landmark discoveries across diverse areas of plant biology. Yet this powerful approach remains largely confined to solanaceous species, leaving most economically important crop families without a comparable rapid assay platform. Here, we show that an engineered Rhizobium rhizogenes strain, AS109, mediates efficient transient expression across diverse dicot species spanning multiple taxonomic families, consistently outperforming commonly used laboratory agrobacterial strains. Leveraging the broad host range of AS109, we establish a suite of functional assays in faba bean (Vicia faba), including protein localisation, RNA interference-mediated gene silencing, cell-surface elicitor recognition screens, nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat receptor (NLR) activation, and infection cell biology at the host-pathogen interface. We further demonstrate that both singleton NLRs and sensor-helper NLR pairs from Solanaceae retain effector recognition and cell death activity when transferred into faba bean, establishing a rapid platform for evaluating cross-family transferability of disease-resistance genes. AS109 thus provides an accessible and versatile chassis for functional genomics in non-model crops, bridging the widening gap between hypothesis generation and experimental validation across diverse plant species.  Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression has revolutionized plant research, but is largely confined to solanaceous species. This study shows that the engineered Rhizobium rhizogenes strain AS109 allows efficient transient expression across diverse dicot crop species spanning multiple taxonomic families, including a suite of functional assays in faba bean.
SN  - 1545-7885
SN  - 1544-9173
ER  -