Characterization of bacteriophages against Erwinia amylovora and Erwinia pyrifoliae causing fire blight and black shoot blight in apple and pear
Duck Hwan Park: Kangwon National University
<div>The fire blight and black shoot blight in apple and pear have been reported in Korea since 2015 and 1995, respectively. As an environmentally friendly control tool for bacterial diseases, bacteriophages that are the viruses killing only target bacteria very specifically have been considered as phage therapy. In this study, we isolated and characterized 21 bacteriophages against <em>Erwinia amylovora</em> and <em>Erwinia pyrifoliae</em> from soils collected at apple and pear orchards in Korea. All isolated bacteriophages were effective to both <em>E. amylovora</em> and <em>E. pyrifoliae</em>, but not to other closely related bacteria such as <em>Pectobacterium carotovorum</em>, <em>Dickeya zeae</em> and <em>Pantoea agglomerans</em>. Isolated bacteriophages were categorized into three groups by the restriction enzyme digestion patterns of their genomic DNAs. Based on morphology and genomic DNA sequences of these three bacteriophages, two belonged to <em>Myoviridae </em>and one belonged to <em>Podoviridae</em>. Lytic activities of all three bacteriophages were stable up to 40-50℃, at pH ranges 3-11, and under 365 nm UV light, indicating that bacteriophages effective to both <em>E. amylovora</em> and <em>E. pyrifoliae </em>are stable under various environmental conditions of apple and pear orchards in Korea. These results suggest that isolated bacteriophages might be used for phage therapy against both <em>E. amylovora</em> and <em>E. pyrifoliae </em>together in the field.</div>
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