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Pectobacterium aroidearum and Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum as causal agents of potato soft rot in Lebanon

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Abstract

To identify bacteria causing severe soft rot on potato in Lebanon, pectinolytic bacteria were isolated from diseased samples collected in the Bekaa valley and the Akkar region, during 2009–2010. Six isolates that induced a hypersensitive reaction in tobacco plants and caused a marked soft rot when inoculated in potato tubers or stem, DAPP-PG 752 to DAPP-PG 757, were further characterized. Analysis of 16S–23S intergenic transcribed spacer-regions, digested with RsaI and CfoI, demonstrated that isolates DAPP-PG 753 to DAPP-PG 757 showed electrophoretic profiles similar to that of LMG 2408, a strain misclassified as Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum, and different from that of DAPP-PG 752. Phylogenetic analysis using partial malate dehydrogenase gene sequences, clustered DAPP-PG 752 in a clade that contained the type strain of P. carotovorum subsp. carotovorum, while DAPP-PG 753 to DAPP-PG 757, together with LMG 2408, fell in a clade including strains of the recently described species Pectobacterium aroidearum. Multilocus sequence analysis of concatenated partial sequences of the atpD, gyrB, infB and rpoB genes confirmed the results obtained with the mdh gene sequences and identified DAPP-PG 752 as P. carotovorum, and LMG 2408 and the five related Lebanese isolates as P. aroidearum. The Lebanese P. aroidearum isolates were phenotypically similar to known P. aroidearum strains, based on API 50 CHE data. They showed identical BOX- and ERIC-PCR profiles that resembled profiles of known P. aroidearum strains. This study represents the first official report of P. aroidearum as causal agent of soft rot on potato plants and the first occurrence of P. carotovorum subsp. carotovorum on potato plants in Lebanon.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Mr. Luca Bonciarelli for technical assistance. The BCCM/LMG Bacteria Collection is supported by the Federal Public Planning Service—Science Policy, Belgium.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Alimentari e Ambientali, Università di Perugia, Via Borgo XX Giugno, 74-06121, Perugia, Italy

    Chiaraluce Moretti, Rim Fakhr, Chiara Cortese, Martina Cerri & Roberto Buonaurio

  2. BCCM/LMG Bacteria Collection, Laboratory of Microbiology, Faculty of Sciences, Ghent University, K.L. Ledeganckstraat 35, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Paul De Vos & Ilse Cleenwerck

  3. Faculty of Agriculture, Lebanese University, Dekwaneh, Lebanon

    Leila Geagea

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  1. Chiaraluce Moretti
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  2. Rim Fakhr
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  4. Paul De Vos
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  8. Roberto Buonaurio
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Correspondence to Chiaraluce Moretti.

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Supplementary Figure 1

Neighbour-joining tree based on partial mdh gene sequences (300 to 437 nt) showing the phylogenetic position of the Lebanese isolates DAPP-PG 752 to DAPP-PG 757 from potato plants with soft rot symptoms within the genus Pectobacterium. Bar, 10 % nucleotide substitutions. Numbers at branching points are bootstrap percentage values based on 1000 replications. Only values >50 % are shown. Strains previously investigated by Pitman et al. (2010) are marked with an asterisk (*) (JPEG 146 kb)

Supplementary Figure 2

Dendrogram based on API 50CHE profiles of Pectobacterium aroidearum strains and related taxa. The dendrogram was constructed with the unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic average (UPGMA) after calculation of the band pattern similarity (%) using the Dice coefficient. The arrow indicates the cut-off value (92 %) for cluster analysis (JPEG 51 kb)

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Moretti, C., Fakhr, R., Cortese, C. et al. Pectobacterium aroidearum and Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum as causal agents of potato soft rot in Lebanon. Eur J Plant Pathol 144, 205–211 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-015-0743-3

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