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Eucalyptus occidentalis plantlets are naturally infected by pathogenic Agrobacterium tumefaciens

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Abstract

In the Sidi M’djahed nursery (Algeria), over 60,000 eucalyptus (Eucalyptus occidentalis) plantlets exhibited tumour-like growths localized at the crown of the plants that resembled crown galls caused by Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Bacteria colonizing the galls were isolated and purified. Most (22 out of 24) of the isolates had cultural and biochemical characteristics similar to those of strains of the biovar 1 of A. tumefaciens. Twenty out of 22 Agrobacterium isolates induced tumour formation on various test plants. In PCR experiments, DNA extracted from these virulent strains yielded an amplification signal corresponding to a 247-bp fragment located within the virulence region of nopaline type Ti plasmid. Consistent with this, the opine nopaline was detected in the tumours induced on test plants – but not on eucalyptus plants. Nopaline was degraded by the 20 pathogenic isolates that were also sensitive to agrocin 84, indicating the presence of a nopaline-type pTi in these strains. The chromosomal region encoding the 16S rRNA was analyzed in a sub-population of the pathogenic agrobacterial isolates. The analyzed strains were found to belong to the ribogroup of the reference strain B6. Interestingly, Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Eucalyptus cladocalyx grown in the same nursery and in the same soil substrate developed no galls.

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Abbreviations

ITS:

Intergenic transcribed spacer

MG:

Mannitol glutamate

MS:

Murashige and Skoog

tms :

tumour morphology shoot

vir :

virulence

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Acknowledgements

This work was made possible in part by INCO-DC, European project ERB1C18CT970198 ‚Integrated control of crown gall in Mediterranean Countries’, for which financial support is acknowledged. The authors thank Aurélie Raffoux, ISV-CNRS, for helpful technical assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Phytobactériologie, Faculté des Sciences Agronomiques et Vétérinaires, Université de Blida, Blida, 09000, Algérie

    Zoulikha Krimi

  2. Instituto per la Protezione delle Piante – CNR, Via Università, 133, 80055, Portici, Napoli, Italy

    Aïda Raio

  3. Institut des Sciences du Végétal, UPR 2355 CNRS, 91198, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France

    Annik Petit & Yves Dessaux

  4. UMR CNRS 5557 Ecologie Microbienne and USC INRA 1193, IFR41 Bio-Environnement et Santé, UniversitéLyon1, 69622, Villeurbanne Cedex, France

    Xavier Nesme

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  1. Zoulikha Krimi
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  2. Aïda Raio
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  3. Annik Petit
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  4. Xavier Nesme
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  5. Yves Dessaux
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Correspondence to Yves Dessaux.

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Krimi, Z., Raio, A., Petit, A. et al. Eucalyptus occidentalis plantlets are naturally infected by pathogenic Agrobacterium tumefaciens . Eur J Plant Pathol 116, 237–246 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-006-9055-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-006-9055-y

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