Pseudomonas – Prunus

Why do some bacteria cause cherry canker and not others?

Prunus is an economically important tree genus including cherries, plums, and peaches. Bacterial canker of Prunus is mainly caused by strains of the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae. Symptoms include oozing or gummy areas of bark, and brown spots or holes on leaves. There are no effective chemical treatments. To contain the disease infected parts or whole trees need to be destroyed. Better ways to monitor and predict disease are needed to reduce tree losses. Key to this is understanding how Pseudomonas syringae bacteria become pathogenic. The community of microbes (microbiome) living naturally on the Prunus leaves includes a huge variety of Pseudomonas syringae bacteria. Some of these are pathogenic, some are not. Pathogenicity (the ability to cause disease) may emerge when natural gene transfer happens between different strains in the leaf microbiome.

Find out more about cherry and plum canker caused by Pseudomonas syringae

This research used genetic sequencing and AI to predict pathogenicity

Using high-throughput genome sequencing we examined the microbiome of farmed cherry trees and nearby wild trees. This revealed all the different strains and the relationships between them. We then studied the frequency of genes for known pathogenicity factors within the strains. Machine learning was used to predict the potential of the bacteria to cause disease in horticultural crops. We also explored the role of viruses (bacteriophages) in gene transfer. This work involved investigating the transfer of virulence genes between bacteria both in the lab and in the plant.

For more information about this project contact Rob Jackson.

Meet the Pseudomonas-Prunus Team