Flooding plant apoplast through water and solute channels

Inducing water-soaking symptoms is a key early step during the pathogenesis of many fungal, oomycete, and bacterial pathogens. A recent publication in Nature by Nomura et al. showed that the conserved AvrE-family type III effectors from several Gram-negative plant bacterial pathogens function as water and solute channels in the plant cell membrane, creating an aqueous nutrient-rich apoplastic space for the multiplication of these bacterial pathogens