Two bacterial entophytes eliciting both plant growth promotion and plant defense on pepper (Capsicum annuum L.).
Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) have the potential to be used as microbial inoculants to reduce disease incidence and severity and to increase crop yield. Some of the PGPR have been reported to be able to enter plant tissues and establish endophytic populations. Here, we demonstrated an approach to screen bacterial endophytes that have the capacity to promote the growth of pepper seedlings and protect pepper plants against a bacterial pathogen. Initially, out of 150 bacterial isolates collected from healthy stems of peppers cultivated in the Chungcheong and Gyeongsang provinces of Korea, 23 putative endophytic isolates that were considered to be predominating and representative of each pepper sample were selected. By phenotypic characterization and partial 16S rDNA sequence analysis, the isolates were identified as species of Ochrobacterium, Pantoea, Pseudomonas, Sphingomonas, Janthinobacterium, Ralstonia, Arthrobacter, Clavibacter, Sporosarcina, Acidovorax, and Brevundimonas. Among them, two isolates, PS4 and PS27, were selected because they showed consistent colonizing capacity in pepper stems at the levels of 10(6)-10(7) CFU/g tissue, and were found to be most closely related to Pseudomonas rhodesiae and Pantoea ananatis, respectively, by additional analyses of their entire 16S rDNA sequences. Drenching application of the two strains on the pepper seedlings promoted significant growth of peppers, enhancing their root fresh weight by 73.9% and 41.5%, respectively. The two strains also elicited induced systemic resistance of plants against Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. vesicatoria.
Kang
Seung Hoon
SH
Laboratory of Microbial Genomics, Systems Microbiology Research Center KRIBB, Daejeon 305-806, Korea.
Cho
Hyun-Soo
HS
Cheong
Hoon
H
Ryu
Choong-Min
CM
Kim
Jihyun F
JF
Park
Seung-Hwan
SH
D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D018407:Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; D001483:Base Sequence; D002212:Capsicum / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000502:physiology; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000235:genetics; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000235:genetics; D007723:Korea; D020636:Pantoea / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000502:physiology; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000382:microbiology; D011549:Pseudomonas / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000502:physiology; D013559:Symbiosis; D053532:Xanthomonas axonopodis / Q000472:pathogenicity
D017931:DNA Primers; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal