• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.248-253
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• 2022

Erwinia amylovora is a devastating bacterial plant pathogen that infects Rosaceae including apple and pear and causes fire blight. Bacteriophages have been considered as a biological control agent for preventing bacterial infections of plants. In this study, nine bacteriophages (ΦFifi011, ΦFifi044, ΦFifi051, ΦFifi067, ΦFifi106, ΦFifi287, ΦFifi318, ΦFifi450, and ΦFifi451) were isolated from soil and water samples in seven orchards with fire blight in Korea. The genetic diversity of bacteriophage isolates was confirmed through restriction fragment length polymorphism pattern analysis. Host range of the nine phages was tested against 45 E. amylovora strains and 14 E. pyrifoliae strains and nine other bacterial strains. Among the nine phages, ΦFifi044 and ΦFifi451 infected and lysed E. amylovora only. And the remaining seven phages infected both E. amylovora and E. pyrifoliae. The results suggest that the isolated phages were different from each other and effective to control E. amylovora, providing a basis to develop biological agents and utilizing phage cocktails.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.232-239
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• 2007

$HrpN_{EP}$, from the gram-negative pathogen, Erwinia pyrifoliae, is a member of the harpin group of proteins, inducing pathogen resistance and hypersensitive cell death in plants. When the $hrpN_{EP}$ gene driven by the OsCc1 promoter was introduced into tobacco plants via Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, their resistance to the necrotrophic fungal pathogen, Botrytis cinerea, increased. Resistance to B. cinerea was correlated with enhanced induction of SA-dependent genes such as PR-1a, PR2, PR3 and Chia5, of JA-dependent genes such as PR-1b, and of genes related to ethylene production, such as NT-EFE26, NT-1A1C, DS321, NT-ACS1 and NT-ACS2. However the expression of NPR1, which is thought to be essential for multiple-resistance, did not increase. Since the pattern of expression of defense-related genes in $hrpN_{EP}$-expressing tobacco differed from that in plants expressing $hpaG_{Xoo}$ from Xanthomonas oryzae pv. Oryzae, these results suggest that different harpins can affect the expression of different defense-related genes, as well as resistance to different plant pathogens.

• Proceedings of the Microbiological Society of Korea Conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.127-131
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• 2004

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.30-42
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• 2008

The disease-specific (dsp) region and the hypersensitive response and pathogenicity (hrp) genes, including the hrpW, $hrpN_{Ep}$, and hrpC operons have previously been sequenced in Erwinia pyrifoliae WT3 [Shrestha et al. (2005a)]. In this study, the remaining hrp genes, including the hrpC, hrpA, hrpS, hrpXY, hrpL and hrpJ operons, were determined. The hrp genes cluster (ca. 38 kb) was comprised of eight transcriptional units and contained nine hrc (hrp conserved) genes. The genetic organization of the hrp/hrc genes and their orientation for the transcriptions were also similar to and collinear with those of E. amylovora, showing ${\geq}80%$ homologies. However, ORFU1 and ORFU2 of unknown functions, present between the hrpA and hrpS operons of E. amylovora, were absent in E. pyrifoliae. To determine the HR active domains, several proteins were prepared from truncated fragments of the N-terminal and the C-terminal regions of $HrpN_{Ep}$ protein of E. pyrifoliae. The proteins prepared from the N-terminal region elicited HR, but not from those of the C-terminal region indicating that HR active domains are located in only N-terminal region of the $HrpN_{Ep}$ protein. Two synthetic oligopeptides produced HR on tobacco confirming presence of two HR active domains in the $HrpN_{Ep}$. The HR positive N-terminal fragment ($HN{\Delta}C187$) was further narrowed down by deleting C-terminal amino acids and internal amino acids to investigate whether amino acid insertion region have role in faster and stronger HR activity in $HrpN_{Ep}$ than $HrpN_{Ea}$. The $HrpN_{Ep}$ mutant proteins $HN{\Delta}C187$ (D1AIR), $HN{\Delta}C187$ (D2AIR) and $HN{\Delta}C187$ (DM41) retained similar HR activation to that of wild-type $HrpN_{Ep}$. However, the $HrpN_{Ep}$ mutant protein $HN{\Delta}C187$ (D3AIR) lacking third amino acid insertion region (102 to 113 aa) reduced HR when compared to that of wild-type $HrpN_{Ep}$. Reduction in HR elicitation could not be observed when single amino acids at different positions were substituted at third amino acids insertion region. But, substitution of amino acids at L103R, L106K and L110R showed reduction in HR activity on tobacco suggesting their importance in activation of HR faster in the $HrpN_{Ep}$ although it requires further detailed analysis.

• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.269-275
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• 2016

Black shoot blight disease caused by Erwinia pyrifoliae have damaged economic loss to apple and pear growers until now since it was firstly reported in 1995 in Korea. This study was performed to reduce economic loss by mandatory eradication of all infected trees in case of more 10% disease incidence per orchard as official control. It also aims to set up effective management protocol for this disease by examining how far bacterial pathogen is present from the border of symptomatic and asymptomatic regions in infected apple twigs. Colony-PCR using isolated bacterial cells instead of genomic DNA was used to identify bacterial pathogen, EpSPF/EpSPR primer designed in enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC) region was selected as specific for E. pyrifoliae. As results of monitoring of this disease during April to October in 2014-2015 by colony-PCR, occurrence of this disease was frequent from mid-May to early-July, when daily average temperature was around $25^{\circ}C$. Moreover, bacterial cells were continuously detected only in symptomatic regions and also asymptomatic regions of less than 20 cm from symptomatic regions. Therefore, we concluded that pruning of infected twigs at the region of more than 20 cm from symptomatic regions might be effective to manage black shoot blight disease in apple trees.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.723-734
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• 2023

Erwinia pyrifoliae, which causes black shoot blight in apple and pear trees, was first identified in Korea in 1995. Extensive measures are typically used to control the disease by eradicating trees in diagnosed orchards, owing to the detrimental impact of the disease on apple and pear production. However, despite governmental efforts, the disease has continuously spread. In this study, we analyzed the current status of the black shoot blight occurrence in apple and pear orchards between 1995 to 2022. Our findings reveal that over the past 28 years, black shoot blight has occurred in 26 cities and districts across five Korean provinces. The affected regions are predominantly concentrated in the northern part of Korea, including the Gangwon and Gyeonggi provinces. Furthermore, black shoot blight has gradually expanded to the northern provincial regions of Chungbuk, Chungnam, and Gyeongbuk, which are centrally situated in Korea. Furthermore, the occurrence pattern of black shoot blight differed between apple and pear orchards; in apple orchards, black shoot blight occurred consistently each year, with a sudden increase in cases in 2020; however, in pear orchards, it has considerably decreased since 2007. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive report on the occurrence of black shoot blight in apple and pear trees in 28 years, and the results will provide valuable insights for future disease management strategies.

• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.306-313
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• 2017

Recently fire blight occurred in the Republic of Korea and eradication program for the disease has been executed since then. Specificity and detection sensitivity of the 2 antibody-based diagnostic strips to Korean isolates of Erwinia amylovora (Ea) and their application for on-site diagnosis were evaluated in this study. Ea AgriStrip, a commercial diagnostic kit, and EB strip, developed in this study, reacted positively to the all tested Korean Ea strains and also to most of Erwinia pyrifoliae (Ep) strains causing black shoot blight. They reacted negatively to all Pusedomonas syringae pv. syringae (Pss) strains that cause shoot blight on apple. Detection sensitivity was similar between the 2 strips. For on-site diagnosis, the two strips reacted positively only to the extractions of the fire-blighted samples on all fire blight occurred orchards except one orchard at which on-site diagnosis was carried out at winter time. In addition, they reacted positively to the black-shoot blighted extractions from the black shoot blight occurred apple orchard. These results suggest that both EB strip and Ea AgriStrip would be useful for on-site diagnosis of fire blight in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.945-955
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• 2016

To date, chemical managements of plant bacterial diseases are complicated by limitations on use of antibiotics in agriculture, antibiotic resistance development, and limited efficacy of alternative control agents. In this study, thus, we performed screening of eco-friendly farming material (notice no. 2-4-064) containing tannic acid as new antibacterial-activity against 7 plant bacterial pathogens: Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum (Pcc), Ralstonia solanacearum (Rs), Acidovorax avenae subsp. citrulli (Aac), Xanthomonas cirti pv. citri (Xcc), Erwinia pyrifoliae (Ep), Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. michiganensis (Cmm), and Streptomyces scabies (Sc), Initial screening of antibacterial effects of eco-friendly farming material was performed using the paper disk diffusion method and co-cultivation in broth culture. Tannic acid based eco-friendly farming material showed inhibitory effect against Pcc, Rs, Aac, Xcc, Cmm, and Ss, whereas it did not show inhibition zone against Ep. However, when it tested by co-cultivation in broth culture, it showed strong inhibition effect against all pathogens that declined growth curve compared to bacterial pathogen only. Interestingly, when we observed morphological changes on those pathogens by SEM, cell morphologies of 7 pathogens were slightly changed that seem to be malfunction in their cell envelope.