Exploiting bacteriocins for plant protection against bacterial infections

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Pseudomonas syringae is a bacterial species that causes disease in over 28 important crops and field losses & spoilage in storage run into $billions worldwide. For annual crops, the primary route of infection is via contaminated seed. The market for seed treatment exceeds $58bn annually but using chemicals or conventional antibiotics is increasingly regarded as having negative environmental consequences. Nearly all bacteria, including Pseudomonas spp., produce bacteriocins, protein antibiotics that kill related species. We have identified bacteriocins from Pseudomonas spp., have produced them in pure form and shown that they effectively kill field isolates of P. syringae isolated from infected crops. When applied to seed they substantially reduce growth of P. syringae. We propose to develop the use of bacteriocins as a seed treatment by optimizing treatment and seed coating conditions and identifying novel bacteriocin species for use in bacteriocin cocktails.