Phenotypic and genetic diversity of Erwinia amylovora: the causal agent of fire blight

Abstract

Erwinia amylovora is a polyphagous bacterium causing fire blight on apple, pear and over 130 other plant species belonging mainly to the Rosaceae family. Although E. amylovora is regarded as a very homogenous species, the particular strains can differ in pathogenic ability as far as their host range is concerned (e.g. those originating from Rubus or Maloidae plants) as well as by the extent of the disease they cause. It was found that strains originating from North America are generally more genetically heterogeneous than those from Europe. Diversity of E. amylovora is also related to streptomycin resistance as a result of its application to control of fire blight. The level of genetic heterogeneity of E. amylovora is so low (comparative genome analysis revealed a similarity of over 99% for the two genomes tested) that standard DNA-based techniques fail in detection of intra-species variability. Amplified fragment length polymorphism was found to be most useful for differentiation of strains of fire blight causal agent as well as techniques ensuing release of pangenome sequences of two E. amylovora strains: multi-locus variable number of tandem repeats analysis and clustered regularly interspaced short palindrome repeats.

Biosynthesis of the Antimetabolite 6‐Thioguanine in Erwinia amylovora Plays a Key Role in Fire Blight Pathogenesis

“…The typical symptom of the disease is necrosis of infected tissues with dissemination of the "scorched" phenotype from the infecting point, eventually involving the entire tree. [2] The production of exudates, called ooze, on infected fruits is another characteristic of the disease. Several factors help this pathogen to establish its pathogenicity.…”

Genetic variability of plant-associated proteobacteria isolated from Slovak (Central European) territory

“…Unambiguous results from the ERIC-PCR complex fingerprinting of all tested virulent strains highlight the potential of the ERIC-PCR method as a fast and efficient tool to discriminate E. amylovora in routine diagnostics. Application of ERIC-PCR and other PCR fingerprinting methods for both diagnostic and epidemiological studies of E. amylovora and other species of Erwinia genus has already been reported (Puławska & Sobiczewski 2012).…”

“…The aim of our study was to analyse genetic and phenotypic features of several wild E. amylovora strains originating from different locations and time periods of the fire blight outbreaks in Hungary and Slovakia and compare them to the properties of E. amylovora strains from different localities (Zhao & Qi 2011;Puławska & Sobiczewski 2012). We decided to analyse the E. amylovora strains as potential carriers of antibiotic resistance given the long-standing history of antibiotic use in the control of fire blight outbreaks.…”

A novel plasmid pEA68 of Erwinia amylovora and the description of a new family of plasmids

“…The plant pathogenic enterobacterium Erwinia amylovora is considered to be homogeneous in terms of phenotypic and genetic features (reviewed by Puławska and Sobiczewski 2012). recent comparative genomics studies confirmed that the chromosome of E. amylovora is highly conserved and has over 99 % amino acid identity among all strains tested (Mann et al 2013).…”