Identification of Pathogenicity Factors in Erwinia tracheiphila, Causal Agent of Bacterial Wilt
Abstract
Cucurbits, collectively classified into Cucurbitaceae family, have about 1000 plant species that includes different important crops. More than 200 diseases affecting cucurbits are caused by a wide range of pathogens, including fungi, bacteria, Phytoplasma, and viruses and nematodes. Bacterial wilt is the most devastating disease among the several bacterial infections and can reduce yield by up to 80%. A major obstacle in the development of better management strategies for controlling bacterial wilt is a lack of host resistance in commercial cultivars and inadequate understanding of host-bacteria interactions and pathogen biology. A forward genetic approach employing transposon mutagenesis was employed to create a random mutant library in Erwinia tracheiphila strain Hca1-5N with help of an IPTG (isopropylthio-β-galactoside) inducible suicide vector, pSNCmTn5ME-mNeonGreen. Using transposable genetic elements that integrate into a recipient genome, transposon mutagenesis creates random insertion mutations that are easy to be identified. Random mutations were employed to establish a saturated mutant library that may be used in the future to evaluate mutants for varying levels of virulence.
Subject Area
Plant sciences|Pathology|Microbiology
Recommended Citation
Harpreet Kaur,
"Identification of Pathogenicity Factors in Erwinia tracheiphila, Causal Agent of Bacterial Wilt"
(2023).
ETD Collection for Tennessee State University.
Paper AAI30571661.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI30571661