BACKGROUND Rahnella aquatilis is ubiquitous and its certain strains have the applicative potent as a plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria. R. aquatilis HX2 is a biocontrol agent to produce antibacterial substance (ABS) and showed efficient biocontrol against crown gall caused by Agrobacterium vitis on sunflower and grapevine plants. The regulatory network of the ABS production and biocontrol ac...

The hypothesis that crown gall tumorigenesis requires the formation of spheroplasts was tested by comparing the tumorinducing ability of populations of both permanent and revertable spheroplasts of Agrobacterium tumefaciens with that of popula tions of the typical rod form of the bacterium. Permanent spheroplasts produced by serial transfers in medium containing 0.005 MD-methionine did not prod...

The plant tumor disease known as crown gall was not called by that name until more recent times. Galls on plants were described by Malpighi (1679) who believed that these extraordinary growth are spontaneously produced. Agrobacterium was first isolated from tumors in 1897 by Fridiano Cavara in Napoli, Italy. After this bacterium was recognized to be the cause of crown gall disease, questions we...

Crown gall tumors induced by Agrobacterium tumefaciens represent a sink that has to be provided with nutrients and water by the host plant. The lack of an intact epidermis or cuticle results in uncontrolled loss of water. However, neither the tumor nor the host plant displays wilting. This phenomenon points to drought adaptation in both tumors and the crown gall host plant. To understand the un...

In the present study, preliminary in-vitro anticancer screening of the alcoholic extracts of leaves (LE) and flowers (FE) of Rhododendron arboreum was performed against Crown Gall tumor and MCF-7 breast cancer cell lines. Both the extracts showed prominent inhibition in the development of Crown Gall tumor in potato discs while only LE was found to be significantly effective against MCF-7. Three...

Agrobacterium tumefaciens oncogenes cause transformed plant cells to overproduce auxin and cytokinin. Two oncogenes encode enzymes that convert tryptophan to indole-3-acetic acid (auxin): iaaM (tryptophan mono-oxygenase) and iaaH (indole-3-acetamide hydrolase). A third oncogene (ipt) encodes AMP isopentenyl transferase, which produces cytokinin (isopentenyl-AMP). Inactivation of ipt and iaaM (o...