Hypersensitive response and pathogenicity (hrp) genes control the ability of major groups of plant pathogenic bacteria to elicit the hypersensitive response (HR) in resistant plants and to cause disease in susceptible plants. A number of Hrp proteins share significant similarities with components of the type III secretion apparatus and f lagellar assembly apparatus in animal pathogenic bacteria. Here we report that Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato strain DC3000 (race 0) produces a filamentous surface appendage (Hrp pilus) of 6-8 nm in diameter in a solid minimal medium that induces hrp genes. Formation of the Hrp pilus is dependent on at least two hrp genes, hrpS and hrpH (recently renamed hrcC), which are involved in gene regulation and protein secretion, respectively. Our finding of the Hrp pilus, together with recent reports of Salmonella typhimurium surface appendages that are involved in bacterial invasion into the animal cell and of the Agrobacterium tumefaciens virB-dependent pilus that is involved in the transfer of T-DNA into plant cells, suggests that surface appendage formation is a common feature of animal and plant pathogenic bacteria in the infection of eukaryotic cells. Furthermore, we have identified HrpA as a major structural protein of the Hrp pilus. Finally, we show that a nonpolar hrpA mutant of P. syringae pv. tomato DC3000 is unable to form the Hrp pilus or to cause either an HR or disease in plants.Major groups of Gram-negative plant pathogenic bacteria belonging to genera Erwinia, Pseudomonas, Ralstonia, and Xanthomonas contain hypersensitive reaction and pathogenicity (hrp) genes. These genes control the ability of these bacteria to initiate interactions with plants, including elicitation of the hypersensitive reaction (HR), characterized by rapid localized death of plant cells at the pathogen infection site in resistant plants and causation of disease in susceptible plants (1, 2).hrp genes of Pseudomonas syringae are expressed in planta as a result of a regulatory cascade involving the gene products of hrpS and hrpR, positive transcriptional regulators, and of hrpL, an alternative sigma factor (3, 4). HrpL recognizes a consensus sequence motif (''harp box'') that has been identified in the upstream regions of many hrp and avr genes (4). The expression of hrp genes of many P. syringae pathovars can also be induced in vitro when bacteria are grown in defined minimal medium with low pH and containing certain sugars or sugar alcohols as carbon sources (5-7).The 25-kb hrpÍhrmA gene cluster of Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae strain 61 is sufficient to enable nonpathogenic strains of Pseudomonas fluorescens and Escherichia coli to elicit the HR in nonhost plants (8). Sixteen of the 25 genes in this completely sequenced hrpÍhrmA gene cluster are either predicted or shown to be required for secretion of harpin Pss , a proteinaceous elicitor of the HR encoded by hrpZ (9, 10). Nine of these hrp genes, recently renamed hrc genes (11), are broadly conserved among P. syringae pathovars, Erwi...