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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbe and Virus Interactions with Plants
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1514551
Evaluation of pathogenicity variation between two Erwinia species in apples and their population using a duplex real-time PCR method
Provisionally accepted- 1 National Institute of Agricultural Science (South Korea), Wanju, Republic of Korea
- 2 Crop Protection Division, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Wanju, Republic of Korea, Wanju,, Republic of Korea
- 3 Disaster Management Division, Rural Development Administration, Jeonju, Republic of Korea, Wanju,, Republic of Korea
Fire blight and black shoot blight diseases, caused by Erwinia amylovora and Erwinia pyrifoliae, respectively, continue to spread several areas in Korea, despite intensive efforts by the government to control diseases. The distribution pattern of fire blight and black shoot blight is different from each other in Korea. Consequently, it is required to investigate the pathogenicity of E. amylovora and E. pyrifoliae in apple trees. The disease severity of fire blight and black shoot blight was compared in this study by an artificial inoculation of E. amylovora and E. pyrifoliae suspensions into the abaxial veins of apple leaves and measuring their pathogenicity at varying temperatures. Furthermore, disease severity was assessed by inoculating E. amylovora and E. pyrifoliae in apple flowers and assessing their pathogenicity at various temperatures. The E. amylovora-inoculated flowers displayed greater disease index than E. pyrifoliae-inoculated flowers at temperatures ranging from 18 to 25°C. Upon Deleted: g 29 Deleted:examining the population sizes of E amylovora and E. pyrifoliae in flowers using a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the Ct value of E. amylovora was found to be lower in the style including stigma and hypanthium than the Ct value of E. pyrifoliae, except at 18°C.Hypanthium contained E. amylovora TS3128 and E. pyrifoliae YKB12327 at >10 7 and 10 5 CFU/ml, respectively at 15°C. Furthermore, in this study, we investigated the population size of E. amylovora and E. pyrifoliae in apple flowers in relation to temperature in order to clarify the differences in their pathogenicity.
Keywords: Fire blight, Black shoot blight, Apple trees, Duplex real-time PCR, Temperature variation, swarming motility
Received: 21 Oct 2024; Accepted: 17 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lee, Balaraju, Choi and Lee. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mi-Hyun Lee, National Institute of Agricultural Science (South Korea), Wanju, Republic of Korea
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