2026/05/18 by Jan Grau, Jens Boch · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Bacterial Genetics and Biotechnology #CRISPR and Genetic Engineering #Chloroplast #Cloning (programming) #Effector #Genome #Genome editing #Modular design #Plant Pathogenic Bacteria Studies #Simple (philosophy) #Synthetic biology
paper · doi:10.1146/annurev-phyto-011325-014601
published in Annual Review of Phytopathology (Annual Reviews)
openalex publication_date 2026/05/18 · openalex created_date 2026/05/19 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
TALEs (transcription activator-like effectors) are an excellent example of how studying pathogen–host interactions can lead to significant biotechnology inventions. TALEs are bacterial effectors that are translocated into plant cells via a bacterial type III secretion system. Once inside the host cell, they are imported into the nucleus to bind specific promoters and induce expression of target genes, thereby supporting the bacterial infection. TALEs are found throughout many, but not all, Xanthomonas pathovars, which can be severe pathogens of different crops. The key feature of TALEs is their modular DNA-binding domain, which allows a simple evolutionary adaptation to novel DNA sequences as well as simple cloning of designer TALEs with desired DNA-binding specificity. Accordingly, TALE-nucleases started the genome-editing revolution, and TALE base editors are the latest tools to efficiently edit chloroplast and mitochondrial genomes. We review recent advances in Xanthomonas genomics, synthesize current knowledge about naturally occurring TALEs, and highlight current roles of TALEs in genome editing and synthetic biology.