Extended Data Fig. 5: Freeloading strains benefit from collective virulence and coexist with cooperating portion of the metaclone.
From: Cooperative virulence via the collective action of secreted pathogen effectors
The virulent PtoDC3000 metaclone D36E::McDC[35] or mock population (D36E::EV) were mixed with strains unfit for multiplication in the plant apoplastic space (that is. freeloaders). Bacterial endophytic growth is reported at 7 dpi for cooperator and freeloader, separately and together, following standard spray infection of mixed populations and controls (Fig2). Differential antibiotic selection shown was used to measure fitness of the two genotypes present in each population, together (Total Growth –Rifampicin only -grey) and separately (Cooperator -rifampicin and tetracycline -blue; Freeloader- rifampicin and kanamycin -orange) a. The effectorless polymutant strain D36E, and b. the natural soil-associated sister species Pf0-1 are rescued to significantly higher load when in the presence of public goods provided cooperatively by the metaclone. Elements in boxplots represent the median of 6 biological replicates per treatment per selection category, the 25th and 75th percentiles, and 1.5 * inter-quantile ranges. Letters represent significant groups estimated via one-way ANOVA with post-hoc Tukey-Kramer HSD using a 95% confidence interval (Source data and p-values in in Supplementary Data 1).
