Conservation of Erwinia amylovora pathogenicity-relevant genes among Erwinia genomes
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Conservation of Erwinia amylovora pathogenicity‑relevant genes among Erwinia genomes Luigimaria Borruso1 · Marco Salomone‑Stagni1 · Ivan Polsinelli1 · Armin Otto Schmitt2 · Stefano Benini1
Received: 20 March 2017 / Revised: 10 May 2017 / Accepted: 3 July 2017 © The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication
Abstract The Erwinia genus comprises species that are plant pathogens, non-pathogen, epiphytes, and opportunistic human pathogens. Within the genus, Erwinia amylovora ranks among the top 10 plant pathogenic bacteria. It causes the fire blight disease and is a global threat to commercial apple and pear production. We analyzed the presence/ absence of the E. amylovora genes reported to be important for pathogenicity towards Rosaceae within various Erwinia strains genomes. This simple bottom-up approach, allowed us to correlate the analyzed genes to pathogenicity, host specificity, and make useful considerations to drive targeted studies. Keywords Fire blight · Comparative genomics · BLAST · Pathogenesis · Virulence factor
Introduction Erwinia amylovora is a Gram negative bacterium affiliated to the Enterobacteriaceae family and the first
Communicated by Djamel DRIDER. Luigimaria Borruso and Marco Salomone-Stagni equally contributed. * Stefano Benini [email protected] 1
Bioorganic Chemistry and Bio‑Crystallography Laboratory (B2Cl), Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bolzano, Piazza Università 5, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
2
Department of Nutztierwissenschaften, Breeding Informatics, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Carl‑Sprengel‑Weg 1, 37075 Göttingen, Germany
phytopathogenic bacterium ever described (Vanneste 2000). E. amylovora is the aetiological agent of the fire blight disease in Rosaceae and represents a major global threat to commercial apple and pear production (Norelli et al. 2003; Van der Zwet et al. 2012; Vanneste 2000). A fire blight outbreak may cause the loss of the entire annual harvest and lead to a dramatic economic damage (e.g., in the year 2000 Michigan economy lost $42 million) (Norelli et al. 2003). Weather condition markedly influence E. amylovora growth. Therefore, disease-forecasting models have been developed to prevent the disease onset by spraying chemicals when the weather conditions are predicted favorable to E. amylovora proliferation (Shtienberg et al. 2003; Van der Zwet et al. 1994). The infection usually occurs in spring when the temperature increases over 18 °C and it spreads by both insects and rain. The disease starts when the bacteria infect the plant through the flower nectarthodes, or through wounds. Within a few days, the infection diffuse rapidly to the whole blossom and young shoots. In a few months, the disease spreads to the whole plant becoming systemic (Smits et al. 2013; Vanneste 2000). Typical symptoms include flower necrosis, blighted shoots and woody tissues cankers. Besides, a common sign of fire blight is the appearance of bacterial ooze. Currently, the main methods to control fire blig
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