Characterization of genes required for the pathogenicity of <i>Pectobacterium carotovorum</i> subsp. <i>carotovorum</i> Pcc21 in Chinese cabbage

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

<P><I>Pectobacterium carotovorum</I> subsp. <I>carotovorum</I> is a well-known plant pathogen that causes severe soft rot disease in various crops, resulting in considerable economic loss. To identify pathogenicity-related factors, Chinese cabbage was inoculated with 5314 transposon mutants of <I>P. carotovorum</I> subsp. <I>carotovorum</I> Pcc21 derived using Tn5 transposon mutagenesis. A total of 35 reduced-virulence or avirulent mutants were isolated, and 14 loci were identified. The 14 loci could be functionally grouped into nutrient utilization (<I>pyrD</I>, <I>purH</I>, <I>purD</I>, <I>leuA</I> and <I>serB</I>), production of plant cell-wall-degrading enzymes (PCWDEs) (<I>expI</I>, <I>expR</I> and PCC21_023220), motility (<I>flgA, fliA</I> and <I>flhB</I>), biofilm formation (<I>expI</I>, <I>expR</I> and <I>qseC</I>), susceptibility to antibacterial plant chemicals (<I>tolC</I>) and unknown function (ECA2640). Among the 14 genes identified, <I>qseC</I>, <I>tolC</I> and PCC21_023220 are novel pathogenicity factors of <I>P. carotovorum</I> subsp. <I>carotovorum</I> involved in biofilm formation, phytochemical resistance and PCWDE production, respectively.</P>