Isolation of Nine Bacteriophages Shown Effective against Erwinia amylovora in Korea

Abstract

Erwinia amylovora is a devastating bacterial plant pathogen that infects Rosaceae including apple and pear and causes fire blight. Bacteriophages have been considered as a biological control agent for preventing bacterial infections of plants. In this study, nine bacteriophages (ΦFifi011, ΦFifi044, ΦFifi051, ΦFifi067, ΦFifi106, ΦFifi287, ΦFifi318, ΦFifi450, and ΦFifi451) were isolated from soil and water samples in seven orchards with fire blight in Korea. The genetic diversity of bacteriophage isolates was confirmed through restriction fragment length polymorphism pattern analysis. Host range of the nine phages was tested against 45 E. amylovora strains and 14 E. pyrifoliae strains and nine other bacterial strains. Among the nine phages, ΦFifi044 and ΦFifi451 infected and lysed E. amylovora only. And the remaining seven phages infected both E. amylovora and E. pyrifoliae. The results suggest that the isolated phages were different from each other and effective to control E. amylovora, providing a basis to develop biological agents and utilizing phage cocktails.

Phage Cocktail in Combination with Kasugamycin as a Potential Treatment for Fire Blight Caused by Erwinia amylovora

“…Although the phages used in this study were isolated using E. amylovora as their host, they could infect E. pyrifoliae , an endemic species that also led to blight symptoms in plants in South Korea, which is in accordance with the previous reports that Erwinia amylovora bacteriophages have a broad host range [ 22 , 23 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ]. From our Erwinia phage isolates, we screened phages based on their bacterial cell lysis efficacy and selected phages φ27, φ31, φ32, φ47, and φ48 to form the Erwinia phage cocktail solution.…”

Optimization of concentration parameters for maximizing bacteriophage recovery value using response surface methodology: A case study on determining the optimal concentration parameters for Erwinia amylovoraEA1T1.B3 phage

“…Bacteriophages have emerged as a promising approach for controlling E . amylovora due to their environmentally benign nature and host‐specific characteristics (Kolozsváriné Nagy et al., 2015; Park et al., 2022). Although promising outcomes have been obtained in small‐scale trials, the number of field trials remains limited (Lehman, 2007).…”

Characterization of Twelve Erwinia amylovora Bacteriophages

“…E. amylovora bacteriophages were isolated from the soil near fruit trees at the sites where fire blight was reported [2,3,7,17,18,19,20,21], from the aerial parts of apple, pear, raspberry, quince, cherry, hawthorn both with and without disease symptoms [3,4,14,16,17,21,22,23,24,25,26], as well as from water samples [20,25].…”