Genome Sequence of an Erwinia amylovora Strain with Pathogenicity Restricted to Rubus Plants

Abstract

Here, we present the genome of a strain of Erwinia amylovora , the fire blight pathogen, with pathogenicity restricted to Rubus spp. Comparative genomics of ATCC BAA-2158 with E. amylovora strains from non- Rubus hosts identified significant genetic differences but support the inclusion of this strain within the species E. amylovora.

Genomics and current genetic understanding of Erwinia amylovora and the fire blight antagonist Pantoea vagans

“…was recently published (Powney et al 2011). Also here, collinearity was obtained over large regions of the chromosome.…”

“…An obvious difference between the currently sequenced E. amylovora genomes is the presence of (cryptic) plasmids (Smits et al 2010b;Sebaihia et al 2010;Powney et al 2011). Plasmids appear to be a major factor influencing the pan-genome of E. amylovora.…”

“…Currently, two further E. amylovora genome sequences are available: Malus isolate Ea273 (ATCC 49946) and the Rubus isolate ATCC BAA-2158 (Powney et al 2011).…”

“…This strain carries, in addition to pEA29, two small plasmids (pEAR4.3, pEAR5.2) ( Table 2). A total of 373 singletons in this strain may give indications towards the restricted host range of this strain (Powney et al 2011). …”

“…Another pathogenic Erwinia species, causing bacterial shoot blight of pear in Japan, was first described as E. amylovora due to similar disease symptoms and was later found to be closer related to E. pyrifoliae than to E. amylovora (Mizuno et al 2000;Matsuura et al 2007;Geider et al 2009). E. tasmaniensis strains were isolated from apple and pear as non-pathogenic epiphytic bacteria (Geider et al 2006;Powney et al 2011). The non-pathogenic E. billingiae was isolated as non-pigmented E. herbicola and later reclassified (Billing and Baker 1963;Mergaert et al 1999).…”