Erwinia and Related Genera

Members of the genus Erwinia are primarily plant-pathogenic and plant-associated bacteria. As modern approaches have focused on the direct analysis of genes and their gene products, commonly associated phenotypes such as the type of disease that they cause and the relatedness of rDNA have prompted splitting of certain Erwinia members into the genus Enterobacter, Pectobacterium, Pantoea or Brenneria. For example, the genus Pectobacterium, which was suggested previously (Brenner et al., 1973), has been resurrected to accommodate those species that profusely produce pectinolytic enzymes in plant pathogenesis and that have related rDNA (Hauben et al., 1998). Because of the large difference in the percent G +C and the rDNA sequence, the genus Pantoea was added. As the sequences of entire genomes of this group of organisms become available, regrouping of the members of these genera will likely take place. Pairwise 16S rDNA sequence comparisons also showed E. alni, E. nigrifluens, E. paradisiaca, E. quercina, E. rubrifaciens and E. salicis grouped into the new genus Brenneria (Hauben et al., 1998).