Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) and their associated proteins (Cas; CRISPR associated) are a bacterial defense mechanism against extra-chromosomal elements. CRISPR/Cas systems are distinct from other known defense mechanisms insofar as they provide acquired and heritable immunity. Resistance is accomplished in multiple stages in which the Cas proteins provide ...

Endophytes are microbes and fungi that live inside plant tissues without damaging the host. Herein we examine the dynamic changes in the endophytic bacterial community in potato (Solanum tuberosum) tuber in response to pathogenic infection by Pectobacterium atrosepticum, which causes soft rot in numerous economically important crops. We quantified community changes using both cultivation and ne...

Plant inoculation with endophytic bacteria that normally live inside the plant without harming the host is a highly promising approach for biological disease control. The mechanism of resistance induction by beneficial bacteria is poorly understood, because pathways are only partly known and systemic responses are typically not seen. The innate endophytic community structures change in response...

CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) arrays and Cas (CRISPR-associated) proteins confer acquired resistance against mobile genetic elements in a wide range of bacteria and archaea. The phytopathogen Pectobacterium atrosepticum SCRI1043 encodes a single subtype I-F CRISPR system, which is composed of three CRISPR arrays and the cas operon encoding Cas1, Cas3 (a Cas2...

In order to control Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum, a novel virulent bacteriophage PM2 was isolated. Bacteriophage PM2 can infect 48% of P. carotovorum subsp. carotovorum and 78% of P. carotovorum subsp. brasilliensis but none of atrosepticum, betavasculorum, odoriferum and wasabiae isolates had been infected with PM2. PM2 phage belongs to the family Myoviridae, and contains a la...

The phytopathogenic bacterium Pectobacterium atrosepticum (Pba) strain SCRI1043 does not exhibit appreciable biofilm formation under standard laboratory conditions. Here we show that a biofilm-forming phenotype in this strain could be activated from a cryptic state by increasing intracellular levels of c-di-GMP, through overexpression of a constitutively active diguanylate cyclase (PleD*) from ...

The term endophyte refers to interior colonization of plants by microorganisms that do not have pathogenic effects on their hosts, and various endophytes have been found to play important roles in plant vitality. In this study, cultivation-independent terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of 16S ribosomal DNA directly amplified from plant tissue DNA was used in combination ...