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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Ithaca, New York » Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture & Health » Emerging Pests and Pathogens Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #418922
Research Project: Advancing Knowledge of the Biology and Etiology of Bacterial Plant Pathogens Towards Management Strategies

Location: Emerging Pests and Pathogens Research

Title: Identifying genes impacting Dickeya fitness in potato stems using an advanced high throughput sequencing technology

Author
item GONZALEZ-TOBON, JULIANA - Cornell University
item Helmann, Tyler
item Stodghill, Paul
item Filiatrault, Melanie

Submitted to: American Phytopathological Society Annual Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/20/2024
Publication Date: 7/22/2024
Citation: Gonzalez-Tobon, J., Helmann, T.C., Stodghill, P., Filiatrault, M.J. 2024. Identifying genes impacting Dickeya fitness in potato stems using an advanced high throughput sequencing technology. American Phytopathological Society Annual Meeting. https://www.apsnet.org/meetings/annual/meetingarchives/PH2024/Pages/default.aspx.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Many bacterial pathogens can cause disease in potatoes but among the most destructive are those that cause soft rot symptoms, like Pectobacterium sp. and Dickeya sp., with more than $60M losses annually in the U.S. Unfortunately, there are no effective options to manage such pathogens and there is still much that we do not know about their interaction with the plant and the environment. It has been of great interest to understand how Dickeya can successfully face a variety of environments within potato plants and tubers. We harnessed the power of a technology that is progressively being implemented for the study of bacterial fitness: randomly barcoded transposon sequencing (RB-TnSeq). This technology allowed us to identify 169 and 157 genes that when disrupted impact growth of Dickeya dadantii and Dickeya dianthicola, respectively, in potato stems. This included genes related to multiple cellular functions like metabolism, chemotaxis, motility, transcriptional regulation, and virulence. Our approach also allowed for the identification of genes required to grow under different environmental conditions, like potato tubers and in vitro. Additionally, differences in fitness determinants were found when comparing Dickeya species. The technology provides high-throughput genome-wide insights into the mechanisms used by Dickeya when interacting with and colonizing plants, and thus might provide targets for management.