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@INPROCEEDINGS{Erdrich:908271,
      author       = {Erdrich, Sebastian and Frunzke, Julia and Schurr, Ulrich
                      and Arsova, Borjana},
      title        = {{I}dentification and characterization of three novel phages
                      against economically relevant plant pathogens and
                      understanding the impact on the plant-pathogen interaction},
      reportid     = {FZJ-2022-02505},
      year         = {2022},
      abstract     = {Rising world population and limited arable land pose a
                      challenge for future agricultural demands. Yield lost due to
                      plant pathogenic bacteria is estimated to account for $10\%$
                      of our total yield losses. Additionally, classically used
                      pest control agents like antibiotics lose their effect since
                      more and more bacteria develop resistance due to over-use.
                      Therefore, phages provide a sustainable and targeted
                      solution for biocontrol in agriculture, which is still
                      underutilized.Many plant pathogenic microbes are soil-born
                      and target the plant root as an early entry point. However,
                      the role of viruses shaping the plant microbiome along the
                      root is not well understood and a better understanding of
                      phage influence within the rhizosphere could lead to new
                      application strategies. In this project we isolated novel
                      phages for the economically relevant plant pathogenic
                      bacteria Agrobacterium tumefaciens, Xanthomonas translucens
                      and Pseudomonas syringae. The work aims to (i) characterize
                      the phage- bacteria interaction and (ii) identify if and how
                      the phage supressed the pathogen in a tripartite gnotobiotic
                      system, with particular focus on the plant root. The results
                      show the isolation and phenotypic characterization of phage
                      Alfirin infecting Agrobacterium tumefaciens, phage
                      Pfeifenkraut infecting Xanthomonas translucens, and phage
                      Athelas infecting Pseudomonas syringae. All phages show a
                      lytic lifestyle, which is supported by genome sequencing and
                      phage infection curves, making them suitable candidates to
                      test their potential in planta. Further, we used plaque
                      assays, TEM, sequencing, and annotation of phage genes as
                      well as infection experiments to validate our potential
                      phage candidates in terms of suitability for biocontrol
                      applications. To study the disease suppression in planta, we
                      are using a Fabricated Ecosystem (EcoFAB), with slight
                      modifications to optimize root growth conditions. Its
                      gnotobiotic environment is constructed by fusing a fluidic
                      camber on a microscope slide, both enclosed in a sterile
                      container. This enables the investigation of the
                      plant-pathogen interaction, as well as plant-phenotypic
                      changes over time using non-invasive phenotyping and
                      invasive harvests (for future molecular analyses). The
                      plant-pathogen interaction has been established and
                      undergone phenotyping to establish the timeline of disease
                      progression. The experiments with phage as a third component
                      show promising preliminary results and are ongoing.},
      month         = {Jul},
      date          = {2022-07-11},
      organization  = {Microbe-assisted crop production –
                       opportunities, challenges and needs,
                       Vienna (Austria), 11 Jul 2022 - 14 Jul
                       2022},
      subtyp        = {Other},
      cin          = {IBG-2 / IBG-1},
      cid          = {I:(DE-Juel1)IBG-2-20101118 / I:(DE-Juel1)IBG-1-20101118},
      pnm          = {2171 - Biological and environmental resources for
                      sustainable use (POF4-217)},
      pid          = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-2171},
      typ          = {PUB:(DE-HGF)6},
      url          = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/908271},
}