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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, June 2003, p. 3484-3491, Vol. 69, No. 6
0099-2240/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.69.6.3484-3491.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Nutritional Similarity between Leaf-Associated Nonpathogenic Bacteria and the Pathogen Is Not Predictive of Efficacy in Biological Control of Bacterial Spot of Tomato

Alexei C. Dianese, Pingsheng Ji, and Mark Wilson^*

Department of Plant Pathology, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama 36849

Received 25 September 2002/ Accepted 4 March 2003

It has been demonstrated that for a nonpathogenic, leaf-associated bacterium, effectiveness in the control of bacterial speck of tomato is correlated with the similarity in the nutritional needs of the nonpathogenic bacterium and the pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato. This relationship was investigated further in this study by using the pathogen Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria, the causal agent of bacterial spot of tomato, and a collection of nonpathogenic bacteria isolated from tomato foliage. The effects of inoculation of tomato plants with one of 34 nonpathogenic bacteria prior to inoculation with the pathogen X. campestris pv. vesicatoria were quantified by determining (i) the reduction in disease severity (number of lesions per square centimeter) in greenhouse assays and (ii) the reduction in leaf surface pathogen population size (log₁₀ of the number of CFU per leaflet) in growth chamber assays. Nutritional similarity between the nonpathogenic bacteria and X. campestris pv. vesicatoria was quantified by using either niche overlap indices (NOI) or relatedness in cluster analyses based upon in vitro utilization of carbon or nitrogen sources reported to be present in tomato tissues or in Biolog GN plates. In contrast to studies with P. syringae pv. tomato, nutritional similarity between the nonpathogenic bacteria and the pathogen X. campestris pv. vesicatoria was not correlated with reductions in disease severity. Nutritional similarity was also not correlated with reductions in pathogen population size. Further, the percentage of reduction in leaf surface pathogen population size was not correlated with the percentage of reduction in disease severity, suggesting that the epiphytic population size of X. campestris pv. vesicatoria is not related to disease severity and that X. campestris pv. vesicatoria exhibits behavior in the phyllosphere prior to lesion formation that is different from that of P. syringae pv. tomato.

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* Corresponding author. Present address: Department of Biology, 14 East Cache La Poudre, The Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO 80903. Phone: (719) 389-6996. Fax: (719) 389-6940. E-mail: mwilson{at}ColoradoCollege.edu.

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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, June 2003, p. 3484-3491, Vol. 69, No. 6
0099-2240/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.69.6.3484-3491.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

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• Hert, A. P., Marutani, M., Momol, M. T., Roberts, P. D., Olson, S. M., Jones, J. B. (2009). Suppression of the Bacterial Spot Pathogen Xanthomonas euvesicatoria on Tomato Leaves by an Attenuated Mutant of Xanthomonas perforans. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 75: 3323-3330 [Abstract] [Full Text]