ABSTRACT
Erwinia psidii causes bacterial disease of guava in Brazil. Phenotypic and molecular characterization through rep-PCR fingerprinting of 42 strains from different geographical regions showed that E. psidii populations in Brazil have a low level of genetic diversity and suggest that contaminated plant material is the main source for pathogen dissemination in the country.
Erwinia psidii é o agente causal da seca-dos-ponteiros ou bacteriose da goiabeira no Brasil. A caracterização fenotípica e molecular através de rep-PCR de 42 estirpes patogênicas de diferentes regiões mostrou que as populações de E. psidii no Brasil têm um baixo nível de diversidade genética e sugere que material de propagação infectado é a principal fonte de disseminação do patógeno para novas áreas no país.
ABSTRACT
The phenotypic characteristics and genetic fingerprints of a collection of 120 bacterial strains, belonging to Pseudomonas syringae sensu lato group, P. viridiflava and reference bacteria were evaluated, with the aim of species identification. The numerical analysis of 119 nutritional characteristics did not show patterns that would help with identification. Regarding the genetic fingerprinting, the results of the present study supported the observation that BOX-PCR seems to be able to identify bacterial strains at species level. After numerical analyses of the bar-codes, all pathovars belonging to each one of the nine described genomospecies were clustered together at a distance of 0.72, and could be separated at genomic species level. Two P. syringae strains of unknown pathovars (CFBP 3650 and CFBP 3662) and the three P. syringae pv. actinidiae strains were grouped in two extra clusters and might eventually constitute two new species. This genomic species clustering was particularly evident for genomospecies 4, which gathered P. syringae pvs. atropurpurea, coronafaciens, garçae, oryzae, porri, striafaciens, and zizaniae at a noticeably low distance.