The plant pathogen Erwinia amylovora: a proteome investigation

Abstract

Erwinia amylovora is considered to be a homogeneous species although different strains show differences in virulence. In this investigation, two wild type strains with differences in virulence, a high virulent strain PFB5 and a low virulent strain LMG2024, were compared using a proteomic approach. Hereby, proteins were identified which were important for this difference in virulence between both strains. Bacteria were grown in a minimal medium and at mid-exponential phase, samples were taken. The complete proteome was extracted and a 2D differential in-gel electrophoresis (DIGE) approach was used. Differently abundant spots were excised, trypsinized and identified. Eventually 31 spots were identified as being important in the difference between the two strains. Flagellin (FliC) and a chemotaxis regulatory protein (CheY) were more abundant in the low virulent strain. A protein important in amylovoran synthesis, UTP-glucose-1-phosphate uridylyltransferase (GalF), was upregulated in the high virulent strain. Afterwards, phenotypic experiments were performed to validate the proteomic results.