SBIR Phase I: Biological treatment of orchards to combat fire blight (Erwina amylovora)

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目提出开发一种新的方法来对抗火疫病的病原体欧文氏菌（Ea）。火疫病已成为世界范围内苹果树和梨树最具破坏性的疾病。许多种植者在开花期间和植物受伤后多次施用链霉素或土霉素以防止Ea的生长。已经分离出耐药菌株，预计耐药性将直接在人类食物链中扩散。在这里，我们建议用对人类、动物和植物无害的细菌、黏菌的微观捕食者来取代这些抗生素。随着农业的发展，细菌捕食者代表了一种新的专有生物防治方法。虽然拟议的项目将侧重于减少果园携带的Ea，一般的方法应该是可扩展的，以治疗农业感染和污染的许多其他种类的细菌病原体。该项目的广泛影响/商业潜力，如果成功的话，将是一种治疗水果和蔬菜作物细菌感染的新方法。 在美国商业种植的水果作物中，苹果和梨的生产面积和利用价值均居第三位。一个紧迫的问题是，在农业中使用临床抗生素是不可避免的。对于有机果园经营者来说，这一禁令将于2014年生效，并将在市场上留下一个巨大的空白。从时间的角度来看，这给了农业化学工业一个立即填补这一空白的机会，并迅速接受以捕食者为基础的新技术。此外，许多农业疾病需要开发对生物膜包裹的细菌有效的全新治疗方法，这些细菌对抗生素是难治的。令人担忧的是，目前没有一种单一的治疗方法可以有效地杀死生物膜，尽管复发感染的发生率表明生物膜存在于世界各地的果园中。抗生素通常只杀死生长中的细胞，而我们将利用的捕食者可以消耗细菌，无论细菌是自由生活的还是生物膜包裹的。3亿美元的苹果/梨市场是基于捕食者的生物防治的第一个目标市场。包括柑橘、葡萄和蔬菜在内的未来市场将使农业市场总额达到10亿美元。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project proposes to develop a novel method to combat Erwinia amylovora (Ea), a causative agent of fire blight. Fire blight has emerged as the most devastating disease of apple and pear trees worldwide. Many growers apply streptomycin or oxytetracycline multiple times during bloom and following plant injuries to prevent the growth of Ea. Resistant strains have been isolated and resistance is expected to proliferate directly in the human food chain. Here we propose to replace these antibiotics with the microscopic predators of bacteria, slime molds, which are benign to humans, animals, and plants. As advancement in agriculture, bacterial predators represent a new proprietary biocontrol approach. Whereas the proposed project will focus on reducing orchard carriage of Ea, the general approach should be extensible to treating agricultural infections and contaminations of many other species of bacterial pathogens. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project, if successful, will be a novel method for the treatment bacterial infections in fruit and vegetable crops. Among fruit crops grown commercially in the U.S., apples and pears rank third in terms of area in production and utilized value. A pressing issue driving the need for an alternative to current treatments is the inevitable ban on the use of clinical antibiotics in agriculture. For organic orchardists, this ban will take effect in 2014, and will leave a significant gap in the marketplace. From a timing perspective, this gives agrochemical industry an immediate opportunity to fill this gap and gain quick acceptance of predator-based new technology. Furthermore, many agricultural diseases demand the development of fundamentally new treatments effective against biofilm-encased bacteria, which are refractory to antibiotics. Alarmingly, there is currently no single treatment that can efficiently kill biofilms even though the incidence of reoccurring infections indicate that biofilms exist in orchards throughout the world. Antibiotics typically kill only growing cells whereas predators we will harness can consume bacteria whether the bacteria are free-living or biofilm-encased. The $300M apple/pear market is the first target market for predator-based biocontrol. Future markets including citrus, grapes, and vegetables, will bring the total addressable agricultural market alone to $1B.