Unifying bacteria from decaying wood with various ubiquitous Gibbsiella species as G. acetica sp. nov. based on nucleotide sequence similarities and their acetic acid secretion.

Bacteria were isolated from necrotic apple and pear tree tissue and from dead wood in Germany and Austria as well as from pear tree exudate in China. They were selected for growth at 37 °C, screened for levan production and then characterized as Gram-negative, facultatively anaerobic rods. Nucleotide sequences from 16S rRNA genes, the housekeeping genes dnaJ, gyrB, recA and rpoB alignments, BLAST searches and phenotypic data confirmed by MALDI-TOF analysis showed that these bacteria belong to the genus Gibbsiella and resembled strains isolated from diseased oaks in Britain and Spain. Gibbsiella-specific PCR primers were designed from the proline isomerase and the levansucrase genes. Acid secretion was investigated by screening for halo formation on calcium carbonate agar and the compound identified by NMR as acetic acid. Its production by Gibbsiella spp. strains was also determined in culture supernatants by GC/MS analysis after derivatization with pentafluorobenzyl bromide. Some strains were differentiated by the PFGE patterns of SpeI digests and by sequence analyses of the lsc and the ppiD genes, and the Chinese Gibbsiella strain was most divergent. The newly investigated bacteria as well as Gibbsiella querinecans, Gibbsiella dentisursi and Gibbsiella papilionis, isolated in Britain, Spain, Korea and Japan, are taxonomically related Enterobacteriaceae, tolerate and secrete acetic acid. We therefore propose to unify them in the species Gibbsiella acetica sp. nov.

Characterization of Bacillus strains from apple and pear trees in South Africa antagonistic to Erwinia amylovora.

In order to find reasons for the absence of fire blight in most countries of the Southern hemisphere, bark samples from apple and pear trees in orchards of the Western Cape region in South Africa were extracted for bacteria which could be antagonistic to Erwinia amylovora. Screening was done in the late growth season and mainly Gram-positive bacteria were isolated. Approximately half of them produced growth inhibition zones on a lawn of E. amylovora. Most isolates were classified as Bacillus megaterium by microbiological assays and in API 50 test systems. They were visualized in the light microscope as non-motile large rods. These strains may not be responsible for the absence of fire blight in orchards, but they may indicate unfavourable climatic conditions for Gram-negative bacteria including E. amylovora. They may reduce the ability of E. amylovora to establish fire blight and could also be useful for application in biological disease control.

Identification of Erwinia amylovora by Growth Morphology on Agar Containing Copper Sulfate and by Capsule Staining with Lectin.

Erwinia amylovora strains formed yellow colonies on minimal agar medium MM2 containing asparagine and copper sulfate (MM2Cu), in contrast to a white morphology on minimal agar without copper salt. Additionally, the colonies were mucoid to various extents. The yellow color was characteristic for the fire blight pathogen, including strains from raspberry and from other unusual host plants, and was used to establish a novel plating technique for identification of E. amylovora. The new identification method was especially superior to semi-selective media with sucrose when natural levan-deficient strains were assayed. No growth of E. amylovora was observed for the similar medium MM1 containing 2 mM CuSO4, due to its low content of as paragine. Identification by colony morphology on MM2 agar with copper was confirmed by staining the bacterial capsules with FITC-labeled lectin from Abrus precatorious, a compound which has a high affinity for galactose residues, the main sugar in the capsular exopolysaccharide amylovoran of E. amylovora. Other plant-associated bacteria usually did not produce the typical colony morphology of E. amylovora on MM2 agar with copper. Furthermore, those cells were not stained with the Abrus lectin. Capsule staining was also observed for weakly mucoid strains of E. amylovora, but not for strains with mutations affecting amylovoran synthesis. The secretion of fluorescent compounds by Pseudomonas syringae pathovars and even growth of any other bacterial colonies adjacent to E. amylovora could interfere with the formation of typical yellow colonies on MM2Cu, which could be white in case of dense plating. After screening for white colonies on LB agar, E. amylovora was identified in extracts from Cotoneaster leaves and in bark from apple trees with fire blight symptoms by its yellow growth pattern on MM2Cu agar and by capsule staining. The proposed selective medium gives a clear signal, is easy to prepare, does not contain dyes or any compounds toxic to humans, and can also detect E. amylovora strains deficient in levan synthesis.

Identification of Pantoea stewartii subsp. stewartii by PCR and Strain Differentiation by PFGE.

Stewart's bacterial wilt and leaf blight of sweet corn and maize is caused by Pantoea stewartii subsp. stewartii. This bacterium can be seed transmitted at a low frequency, so it is subject to quarantine restrictions by many countries. To develop a polymerase chain reaction assay for the identification of this pathogen from field samples and for use in seed health tests, four primer pairs were tested. These were selected from the sequences of hrpS, cpsDE, and the 16S rRNA intergenic transcribed spacer (ITS) region. Under optimal reaction conditions, about 20 and 200 cells of P. stewartii could be detected in pure cultures and leaf lesions, respectively. Other plant-associated enteric bacteria (e.g., P. agglomerans pv. herbicola, P. ananas, Erwinia amylovora, and E. carotovora) either did not produce amplicons or they were not the correct size for P. stewartii. To test further for possible false positives, 29 yellow-pigmented bacteria, mainly other Pantoea spp., were isolated from lesions on old corn leaves and assayed with the ITS primer sets. Except for weak, variable reactions with three P. ananas strains, the bacteria did not test positive. Pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was evaluated as an additional test to confirm the identity of P. stewartii. After digestion with SpeI and XbaI, P. stewartii strains could be easily distinguished from related Erwinia and Pantoea spp. and each other.

Molecular Detection and Differentiation of Erwinia pyrifoliae and Host Range Analysis of the Asian Pear Pathogen.

The recently described pathogen Erwinia pyrifoliae, isolated from Nashi pear fruit trees in Korea, resembles the fire blight pathogen Erwinia amylovora in some of its properties. The two pathogens were classified into different species by DNA hybridization kinetics and microbiological criteria. From the nucleotide sequences of the 16S rRNA and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region as well as extracellular polysaccharide (EPS)-encoding genes, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers were designed that specifically detect E. pyrifoliae but not the fire blight pathogen Erwinia amylovora, and these primers were also applied to identify E. pyrifoliae in necrotic plant material. The genomes of several strains were digested with the restriction enzyme SpeI, and the DNA fragments were analyzed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Three groups of patterns could be distinguished for the isolated E. pyrifoliae strains, all different from various E. amylovora strains, which produce a relatively homogeneous PFGE pattern after SpeI digests. Typical fire blight host plants were assayed in a growth chamber or an experimental field for their susceptibility to E. pyrifoliae. A strong preference was found for pear varieties, whereas apple, cotoneaster, hawthorn, or raspberry rarely produced necrotic symptoms. E. pyrifoliae was readily detected in samples from pear orchards in South Korea during 1995 to 1998; however, the Asian pear pathogen was not recovered in necrotic plant tissue from 1999 and 2000.

Molecular analyses of Erwinia amylovora strains isolated in Russia, Poland, Slovenia and Austria describing further spread of fire blight in Europe.

Fire blight, a bacteriosis of apple and pear, was assayed with molecular tools to associate its origin in Russia, Slovenia and south-eastern Austria with neighboring countries. The identification of all investigated strains was confirmed by MALDI-TOF mass spectroscopy except one. Independent isolation was verified by the level of amylovoran synthesis and by the number of short sequence DNA repeats in plasmid pEA29. DNA of gently lysed E. amylovora strains from Russia, Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Poland, Central Europe and Iran was treated with restriction enzymes XbaI and SpeI to create typical banding patterns for PFGE analysis. The pattern Pt2 indicated that most Russian E. amylovora strains were related to strains from Turkey and Iran. Strains from Slovenia exhibited patterns Pt3 and Pt2, both present in the neighboring countries. Strains were also probed for the recently described plasmid pEI70 detected in Pt1 strains from Poland and in Pt3 strains from other countries. The distribution of pattern Pt3 suggests distribution of fire blight from Belgium and the Netherlands to Central Spain and Northern Italy and then north to Carinthia. The PFGE patterns indicate that trade of plants may have introduced fire blight into southern parts of Europe proceeded by sequential spread.

Hypersensitive response and acyl-homoserine lactone production of the fire blight antagonists Erwinia tasmaniensis and Erwinia billingiae.

Fire blight caused by the Gram-negative bacterium Erwinia amylovora can be controlled by antagonistic microorganisms. We characterized epiphytic bacteria isolated from healthy apple and pear trees in Australia, named Erwinia tasmaniensis, and the epiphytic bacterium Erwinia billingiae from England for physiological properties, interaction with plants and interference with growth of E. amylovora. They reduced symptom formation by the fire blight pathogen on immature pears and the colonization of apple flowers. In contrast to E. billingiae, E. tasmaniensis strains induced a hypersensitive response in tobacco leaves and synthesized levan in the presence of sucrose. With consensus primers deduced from lsc as well as hrpL, hrcC and hrcR of the hrp region of E. amylovora and of related bacteria, these genes were successfully amplified from E. tasmaniensis DNA and alignment of the encoded proteins to other Erwinia species supported a role for environmental fitness of the epiphytic bacterium. Unlike E. tasmaniensis, the epiphytic bacterium E. billingiae produced an acyl-homoserine lactone for bacterial cell-to-cell communication. Their competition with the growth of E. amylovora may be involved in controlling fire blight.

Erwinia tasmaniensis sp. nov., a non-phytopathogenic bacterium from apple and pear trees.

Bacteria were isolated from flowers and bark of apple and pear trees at three places in Australia. In Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland, strains with white colonies on nutrient agar were screened for dome-shaped colony morphology on agar with sucrose and were found to be closely related by several criteria. The isolates were not pathogenic on apples or pears. They were characterized by a polyphasic approach including microbiological and API assays as well as fatty acid methyl ester analysis, DNA-DNA hybridization and DNA sequencing. For molecular classification, the 16S rRNA cistron and the conserved genes gpd and recA of these bacteria were investigated. Together with other taxonomic criteria, the results of these studies indicate that the bacteria belong to a novel separate species, which we propose to name Erwinia tasmaniensis sp. nov., with the type strain Et1/99(T) (=DSM 17950(T)=NCPPB 4357(T)). From DNA-DNA hybridization kinetics, microbiological characteristics and nucleotide sequence analyses, this species is related to pathogenic Erwinia species, but also to the epiphytic species Erwinia billingiae.

Molecular differentiation of Erwinia amylovora strains from North America and of two Asian pear pathogens by analyses of PFGE patterns and hrpN genes.

In order to determine a possible genomic divergence of Erwinia amylovora'fruit tree' and raspberry strains from North America, several isolates were differentiated by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) analysis, the size of short DNA sequence repeats (SSRs) and the nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequences of their hrpN genes. By PFGE analysis European strains are highly related, whereas strains from North America were diverse and were further distinguished by the SSR numbers from plasmid pEA29. The E. amylovora strains from Europe showed identical HrpN sequences in contrast to the American isolates from fruit trees and raspberry. Those were related to each other, but distinguishable by their HrpN patterns. The Asian pear pathogens differed in HrpN among each other and from E. amylovora. Erwinia pyrifoliae isolates and the Erwinia strains from Japan were ordered via their HrpN sequences in agreement with the PFGE patterns. For all three pathogens, dendrograms from PFGE and sequence data indicate an evolutionary diversity within the species in spite of a genetic conservation for parts of the hrpN genes suggesting a long persistence of the Asian pear pathogens in Korea and Japan as well as of fire blight in North America. Some of the divergent American E. amylovora isolates share PFGE patterns with the relatively uniform European strains.

Following spread of fire blight in Western, Central and Southern Europe by molecular differentiation of Erwinia amylovora strains with PFGE analysis.

Fire blight has been detected recently in several areas of northern Spain and north-eastern Italy. To follow spread of the disease within Europe, more than 120 Erwinia amylovora strains isolated from 1957-1900 in England, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Italy and Spain were assayed using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) analysis of genomic DNA after XbaI digestion. Pattern types Pt1 and Pt4 were found for strains from England. Pt1 was also found in central Europe and eastern France, Pt4 in western France. Pt2 appeared first in Egypt, from where strains with this pattern disseminated northwards as far as into the Balkans. Pt3 was typical for northern France and Belgium. Strains from Spain displayed the pattern types Pt3 and Pt4. In Italy, Pt2 was found in the south-eastern areas, Pt3 in the north-eastern areas, and Pt1 was found very recently in orchards adjacent to the Austrian border, together with Pt3. Despite barely controlled trade with fire blight host plants and associated plant products within Europe, the PFGE patterns of the E. amylovora isolates were ordered indicating sequential spread. On the other hand, the appearance of Pt3 in northern Italy and central Spain can be explained by the import of contaminated plants by nurseries.

Molecular characterization of natural Erwinia pyrifoliae strains deficient in hypersensitive response.

From necrotic tissue of a Nashi pear tree, 24 Erwinia pyrifoliae strains, found to be identical by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analysis, were isolated. Thirteen strains were not virulent on immature pears and did not induce a hypersensitive response in tobacco leaves. The defective gene hrpL was complemented with intact genes from E. pyrifoliae and Erwinia amylovora.