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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, October 2001, p. 4414-4425, Vol. 67, No. 10
Root Disease and Biological Control Research
Unit, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Pullman,
Washington,1 and Department of Plant
Pathology, The Ohio State University, Wooster,
Ohio2
Received 3 May 2001/Accepted 8 July 2001
Take-all, caused by Gaeumannomyces
graminis var. tritici, is one of the most
important fungal diseases of wheat worldwide. Knowing that
microbe-based suppression of the disease occurs in monoculture wheat
fields following severe outbreaks of take-all, we analyzed the changes
in rhizosphere bacterial communities following infection by the
take-all pathogen. Several bacterial populations were more abundant on
diseased plants than on healthy plants, as indicated by higher counts
on a Pseudomonas-selective medium and a higher
fluorescence signal in terminal restriction fragment length
polymorphism analyses of amplified 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA). Amplified
rDNA restriction analysis (ARDRA) of the most abundant cultured
populations showed a shift in dominance from Pseudomonas to Chryseobacterium species in the rhizosphere of
diseased plants. Fluorescence-tagged ARDRA of uncultured rhizosphere
washes revealed an increase in ribotypes corresponding to several
bacterial genera, including those subsequently identified by partial
16S sequencing as belonging to species of alpha-, beta-, and
gamma-proteobacteria, sphingobacteria, and flavobacteria. The
functional significance of some of these populations was investigated
in vitro. Of those isolated, only a small subset of the most abundant
Pseudomonas spp. and a
phlD+ Pseudomonas sp.
showed any significant ability to inhibit G. graminis var. tritici directly. When
cultured strains were mixed with the inhibitory
phlD+ Pseudomonas
strain, the Chryseobacterium isolates showed the least
capacity to inhibit this antagonist of the pathogen, indicating that
increases in Chryseobacterium populations may facilitate the suppression of take-all by 2,4-diacetylphloroglucinol-producing phlD+ pseudomonads.
0099-2240/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.67.10.4414-4425.2001
Changes in Populations of Rhizosphere Bacteria
Associated with Take-All Disease of Wheat
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Plant Pathology, The Ohio State University, OARDC, 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster, OH 44691-4096. Phone: (330) 202-3565. Fax: (330) 263-3841. E-mail: bbmg+{at}osu.edu.
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