• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.121-125
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• 2004

An epidemic of target leaf spot of cucumber (Cucumis sativus) occurred in commercial greenhouses in Korea in 2000/2001. The early symptoms on the leaves were small brown spots with yellow halos. These lesions became irregular enlarging in diameter and eventually defoliation resulted. The causal agent was a fungus with morphological characteristics matching Corynespora cassiicola. The sequence of the ITS region of C. cassiicola CM2000-1 was identical to that of an authentic strain of Corynespora cassiicola. Optimal germination of spores and mycelial growth on plate was at 3$0^{\circ}C$. A long dew period on the leaf surface and high temperatures were the main contributing factors for disease development and the greenhouse epidemic. Artificial inoculation of the Korean isolate of C. cassiicola revealed resistance in some Korean cucumber cultivars.

• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.328-331
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• 2018

A severe disease with leaf spots and necrotic symptoms was observed in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) seedlings in April 2018 at a nursery in Kimjae, Korea (35o 47'09.8"N 127o 2'24.3"E). The infected plants initially showed spots on water-soaked cotyledons which, at later stages, enlarged and spread to the leaves, which the lesions becoming dry and chlorotic. The symptomatic samples were collected from cucumber and the isolates were cultured on LB agar. The representative bacterial strain selected for identification showed fluorescent on King's medium B, was potato rot-positive, levan and arginine dihydrolase-negative, oxidase-negative and tobacco hypersensitivity-positive in LOPAT group 2 as determined by LOPAT tests. A pathogenicity test was carried out on a 3-week-old cucumber. After 3 days of inoculation, leaf spots and necrotic symptoms appeared on the cucumber, similar to the originally infected plants. The infecting bacterial strain was identified as Pseudomonas viridiflava, by 16S rDNA sequence analysis. This is the first report of leaf spot diseases on cucumber caused by P. viridiflava.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.378.2-378
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• 2001

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Plant Pathology Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.90.1-90
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• 2003

Colonization of Pseudomonas chlororaphis O6, a nonpathogenic rhizobacterium, on the roots induced systemic resistance in cucumber plants against tai-get leaf spot, a foliar disease caused by Corynespora cassiicola. A cDNA library was constructed using mRNA extracted from the cucumber leaves 12 h after inoculation with C. cassiicola, which roots had been previously treated with O6. To identify the genes involved in the O6-mediated induced systemic resistance (ISR), we employed a subtractive hybridization method using mRNAs extracted from C cassiicola-inoculated cucumber leaves with and without previous O6 treatment on the plant roots. Differential screening of the cDNA library led to the isolation of 5 distinct genesencoding a GTP-binding protein, a putative senescence-associated protein, a galactinol synthase, a hypersensitive-induced reaction protein, and a putative aquaporin. Expressions of these genes are not induced by O6 colonization alone. Before challenge inoculation, no increase in the gene transcriptions could be detected in previously O6-treated and untreated plants but, upon subsequent inoculation with the pathogenic fungus, transcription levels in O6-treated plants rose significantly faster and stronger than in untreated plants. Therefore, the O6-mediated ISR may be associated with an enhanced capacity for the rapid and effective activation of cellular defense responses which becomes apparent only after challenge inoculation on the distal, untreated plant parts, as suggested by Conrath et al. (2002). This work was supported by a grant R11-2001-092-02006-0 from the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation through the Agricultural Plant Stress Research Center at Chonnam National University.

• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.78-83
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• 2002

Tobacco diseases have not been recorded until 1900s in Korea, where tobacco plants were introduced at early 1700s. Practical researches on the disease have been conducted since mid 1960s. Major ten tobacco diseases were mosaic caused by tobacco mosaic virus·potato virus Y·cucumber mosaic virus, bacterial wilt, hollow stalk, wild fire caused by angular leaf spot strain, black shank, brown spot, powdery mildew and fusarium wilt. But their annual occurrences were varied according to changes of tobacco varieties and their cultivating practices. As no useful chemicals, several biological tactics have been developed to control the viral or bacterial diseases that give significant economic damages on sustainable crop yield, but not practicable to field farming condition yet. Transgenic tobacco plants containing foreign disease resistant genes have been developed by current bio-technology, but not released to farmers yet. Though some disease-resistant tobacco varieties have been developed by the conventional breeding technology and currently used by farmers, their disease controlling efficacy have been diminished by occurrence of the new strain or race. Future research on tobacco diseases has been focused on technical development to produce high quality tobacco with less production cost, which leads Korean tobacco industry to keep its competence against foreign industry and decreasing overall market.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.142-148
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• 2005

Whereas most of isolates of Cucumber mosaic virus(CMV) can induce green mosaic systemic symptoms on zucchini squash, foliar symptoms of a pepper isolate of CMV (Pf-CMV)-infected zucchini squash revealed systemic chlorotic spots. To assess this biological property, infectious full-length cDNA clones of Pf-CMV were constructed using long-template RT-PCR. The complete nucleotide sequences of RNA2 and RNA3 of Pf-CMV were determined from the infectious fulllength cDNA clones, respectively. RNA 2 and RNA3 of Pf-CMV contain 3,070 nucleotides and 2,213 nucleotides, respectively. Overall sequence homology of two RNAs revealed high similarity (90%) between CMV strains, and 60% similarity to those of Tomato aspermy virus and Peanut stunt virus strains. By sequence analysis with known representative strains of CMV, Pf- CMV belongs to a typical member of CMV subgroup IA. The virus has high evolutionary relationship with Fny-CMV, but the pathology of Pf-CMV in zucchini squash was quite different from that of Fny-CMV. The pesudorecombinant virus, F1P2P3, induced chlorotic spot leaf symptom and timing of systemic symptom in squash plants, similar to the plants infected by Pf-CMV. No systemic symptoms were observed when Pf-CMVinoculated cotyledons were removed at 5 days postinoculation (dpi) while Fny-CMV showed systemic symptom at 2 dpi. These results suggest that the pepper isolate of CMV possesses unique pathological properties distinguishable to other isolates of CMVs in zucchini squash.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.123-127
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• 2003

A severe disease of muskmelon (Cucumis melo cv. Alsnight) grown on rockwool in a plastic house was characterized by leaf and stem necrosis followed by death of the plants. In 2001, an isolate of Melon necrotic spot virus-MN (MNSV-MN) of the genus Camovirus was identified as the causal agent of the disease on the basis of biological reactions and nucleotide sequence analyses of coat protein (CP) gene. MNSV-MN induced necrotic local lesions on mechanically inoculated leaves and systemic necrotic spots on the upper leaves of melon cvs. Alsnight, Rui III, Party, Imperial, and Seolhang. However, the inoculated leaves of watermelon and cucumber showed only necrotic lesions. DsRNAs extracted from the melon infected with MNSV-MN were separated into three components. Molecular sizes of the dsRNAs were estimated at approximately 4.5, 1.8, and 1.6 kbp. The amplified cDNA products of CP gene for MNSV-MN by RT-PCR showed approximately 1.2 kbp. The amplified DNA was digested to three fragments by MspI treatment. The cDNA of the genomic RNA of MNSV-MN was cloned and the region deduced to encode the CP was sequenced. The CP coding region, located near 3' end of the genome, consisted of 1,170 nucleotides and had the potential to encode a 390 amino acid protein. The nucleotide and amino acid sequences of MNSV-MN CP gene were 84.0-94.6% and 90.8-94.9% identical with other MNSV isolates found in the GeneBank database, respectively. This is the first report on the occurrence of MNSV in Korea.

• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.158-167
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• 2016

A pathogen that causes a new disease on green pumpkin in the nursery and the field was characterized and identified. Symptoms of the disease on green pumpkin were water soaking lesions and spots with strong yellow halo on leaf, brown lesion on flower, and yellow spot on fruit. The bacterial isolates from the leaf spot were pathogenic on the 8 curcubitaceae crop plants, green pumpkin, figleaf gourd, wax gourd, young pumpkin, zucchini, cucumber, melon, and oriental melon, whereas they did not cause the disease on sweet pumpkin and watermelon. They were Gram-negative, rod shape with polar flagella, fluorescent on King's B agar and LOPAT group 1a by LOPAT test. Their Biolog substrate utilization patterns were similar to Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae's in Biolog database. Phylogenetic trees with 16S rRNA gene sequences and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) with nucleotide sequences of 4 housekeeping genes, gapA, gltA, gyrB, rpoD and those of P. syringae complex strains in the Plant Associated and Environmental Microbes Database (PAMDB) showed that the green pumpkin isolates formed in the same clade with P. syringae pv. syringae strains. The clade in MLST tree was in the genomospecies 1 group. The phenotypic and genotypic characteristics suggested that the isolates from green pumpkin lesion were P. syringae pv. syringae.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Plant Pathology Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.100.1-100
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• 2003

A dctA gene encoding a protein with identity to a C4-dicarboxylate/H+ was cloned from a beneficial biocontrol bacterium, P. chororaphis O6. Expression of the dctA was induced in minimal medium by several organic acids and was repressed by glucose. Highest expression was observed in early-log cells grown on fumarate and succinate with decline as cells approached late-log phase. The dctA transcript accumulated weakly when cells were grown on malate but strong expression was observed with benzoate. Expression of the dctA transcript was repressed in early-log cells upon addition of glucose to fumarate, but was detected as the cell culture aged. A dctA-deficient mutant of O6, constructed by marker exchange mutagenesis, did not grow on minimal medium containing succinate, benzoate, or fumarate, and growth on malate was delayed. The dctA mutant and wild type grew equally on glucose. The dctA mutant on cucumber roots in sterilized potting soil was colonized at levels comparable to those of the wild type, but induction level of disease resistance by the mutant against target leaf spot disease was decreased. These results may indicate that the dctA is essential for utilization of certain organic acids and its expression is controlled by the availability of sugars. In addition, the dctA is not essenitial for cucumber root colonization, but important for induction of disease resistance.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.323-328
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• 2006

Serratia marcescens W1, isolated from cucumber-cultivated soil in Suwon, Korea, evidenced profound antifungal activity and produced the extracellular hydrolytic enzymes, chitinase and protease. In order to isolate the antifungal genes from S. marcescens W1, a cosmid genomic library was constructed and expressed in Escherichia coli. Transformants exhibiting chitinase and protease expression were selected, as well as those transformants evidencing antifungal effects against the rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe grisea, and the cucumber leaf spot fungus, Cercospora citrullina. Cosmid clones expressing chitinase or protease exerted no inhibitory effects against the growth of fungal pathogens. However, two cosmid clones evidencing profound antifungal activities were selected for further characterization. An 8.2 kb HindIII fragment from these clones conditioned the expression of antagonistic activity, and harbored seven predicted complete open reading frames(ORFs) and two incomplete ORFs. The deduced amino acid sequences indicated that six ORFs were highly homologous with genes from S. marcescens generating pyrroloquinoline quinone(PQQ). Only subclones harboring the full set of pqq genes were shown to solubilize insoluble phosphate and inhibit fungal pathogen growth. The results of this study indicate that the functional expression of the pqq genes of S. marcescens W1 in E. coli may be involved in antifungal activity, via as-yet unknown mechanisms.