Low-Pressure Plasma Application for the Inactivation of the Seed-borne Pathogen <i><i>Xanthomonas campestris</i></i>

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of low-pressure plasma treatment on seed disinfection and the possible mechanisms underlying this effect. Seed-borne disease refers to plant diseases that are transmitted by seeds; seed disinfection is an important technique for prevention of such diseases. In this study, the effectiveness of low-pressure plasma treatment in the inactivation of the seed-borne plant pathogenic bacterium, Xanthomonas campestris, inoculated on cruciferous seeds, was evaluated. The highest inactivation effect was observed when the treatment voltage and argon gas flow rate were 5.5 kV and 0.5 L/min, respectively. The viable cell number of X. campestris was 6.6 log cfu/seed before plasma treatment, and decreased by 3.9 log after 5 min of treatment and by 6.6 log after 40 min. Ethidium monoazide treatment and quantitative real-time PCR results indicated that both the cell membrane and target DNA region were damaged following 5 min of plasma treatment. Although both heat and ozone were generated during the plasma treatment, the contribution of both factors to the inactivation of X. campestris was small by itself in our low-pressure plasma system. Overall, we have shown that our low-pressure plasma system has great applicability to controlling plant pathogenic bacterium contamination of seeds.

Cold plasma: a potential new method to manage postharvest diseases caused by fungal plant pathogens

“…For agriculture and horticulture, successful use of CP for bacterial decontamination has been reported for fresh fruit and vegetables (Baier et al ., ; Matan et al ., ), nuts (Deng et al ., ; Niemira, ), seeds (Nishioka et al ., ), spices such as black pepper (Sun et al ., ; Hertwig et al ., ), meat (Noriega et al ., ; Fröhling et al ., ), dairy (Gurol et al ., ) and eggs (Ragni et al ., ). Most reports are restricted to food safety pathogens such as Escherichia coli , Listeria and Salmonella , and are limited to laboratory‐scale trials.…”

Design and effectiveness of pulsed electric fields towards seed disinfection

“…lactucae showed similar but limited efficacy for lettuce seeds ( L. sativa ) in terms of infected plants and disease index . Low‐pressure plasma treatments with voltage and argon gas flow rates of 5.5 kV and 0.5 L min −1 respectively for 5 min and 40 min reduced X. campestris by 3.9 log(cfu g −1 ) and 6.6 log(cfu g −1 ) respectively, and damaged cell membrane after 5 min for cruciferous seeds …”

Plant Disease Control by Non-Thermal Atmospheric-Pressure Plasma

“…Plasma-generated gas (Los et al, 2018) and plasma discharged in water (Kang et al, 2015) have also been used to disinfect seeds. In addition, low-pressure plasma treatment showed the efficient removal of pathogenic bacteria from the vegetable seeds (Nishioka et al, 2016).…”