Analysis of the Potential for Targeted Host Specificity in Bacterial Plant-Inoculants

通过在植物根部接种有益细菌，可以改善植物和土壤的健康。特别是，控制植物根部真菌疾病的细菌接种剂已被证明在限制条件下是成功的。然而，这种方法的潜力尚未在现场实现。一个原因是，单个细菌产品的适用范围有限，因为它们缺乏在不同环境条件下在不同作物的根际建立高种群的能力。这项提议的目标是分离能够提高荧光假单胞菌能力的基因，以便在不同作物的根际建立自己。所提出的方法是首先组装一组特征良好的荧光假单胞菌，这些假单胞菌可以进行分子遗传操作，然后确定它们的根际能力是否对三种不同的作物具有寄主专一性。这种方法的成功将为开发根部定植假单胞菌作为土壤传播真菌病原体的微生物杀虫剂铺平道路，并为使用化学品控制许多植物病害提供一种可行的替代方案。

Plant and soil health can be improved through the inoculation of plant roots with beneficial bacterial. In particular, bacterial inoculants that control fungal diseases of plant roots have proven successful under restricted conditions. However, the potential of this approach has yet to be realized in the filed. One reason is that individual bacterial products are limited in their range of applicability due their lack of ability to establish high populations in the rhizosphere of different crops under different environment conditions. The goal of this proposal is to isolate genes that would improve the competence of fluorescent pseudomonads to establish themselves in the rhizosphere of different crop plants. The approach proposed is first to assemble a well- characterized collection of fluorescent pseudomonads that are amenable to molecular genetic manipulation, and then to determine whether their rhizosphere competence is host- specific for three different crop plants. Success is in this approach will pave the way for the development of root- colonizing pseudomonads as microbial pesticides for soil- borne fungal pathogens, and provide a viable alternative to the use of chemicals for the control of many plant diseases.