Analysis of the Binding of Expansin Exl1, from Pectobacterium carotovorum, to Plant Xylem and Comparison to EXLX1 from Bacillus subtilis

The plant xylem is a preferred niche for some important bacterial phytopathogens, some of them encoding expansin proteins, which bind plant cell walls. Yet, the identity of the substrate for bacterial expansins within the plant cell wall and the nature of its interaction with it are poorly known. Here, we determined the localization of two bacterial expansins with differing isoelectric points (and with differing binding patterns to cell wall …