Phytopathology (1996) 86, p. S84 (Vanneste et al.)

J.L. Vanneste and J. Yu (1996)
Cloning and sequencing of a 2.5 kb DNA fragment from Erwinia herbicola Eh252 necessary for production of an antibiotic involved in biological control of fire blight
Phytopathology 86 (11 suppl.), S84-S84
Abstract: Erwinia herbicola Eh252 is a non-pathogenic epiphytic bacterium which reduces incidence of fire blight, a bacterial disease of apple and pears caused by Erwinia amylovora. Eh252 produces an antibiotic which has been shown to be a major factor involved in the inhibition of E. amylovora. Clones of Escherichia coli carrying gene(s) necessary for antibiotic production were identified in a gene library of Eh252 by their ability to inhibit on plate the growth of E. amylovora. Analysis of nested deletions and trasposon induced mutants revealed that only a ca. 2.4 kb fragment was necessary to complement all non-antibiotic producing mutants of E. herbicola Eh252 and to confer antibiotic production to E. coli. A comparison of the predicted amino acid sequence of this DNA fragment with that of the "Non-redundant" protein database available through Blast revealed that a stretch of 81 amino acid has 51% identity and 67% similarity with MccB from E. coli. It is believed that MccB is responsible for the adenylation of MccA leading to the mature translation inhibitor microcin C7. This suggests that the inhibitory compound produced by Eh252 is a postranslationally modified peptide, possibly adenylated at the C terminal.
Database assignments for author(s): Joel L. Vanneste

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
biocontrol - natural enemies
Research topic(s) for beneficials or antagonists:
general biology - morphology - evolution
molecular biology - genes

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Erwinia amylovora
Pantoea agglomerans (antagonist)	Erwinia amylovora