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Characterization of a tonB mutation in Erwinia chrysanthemi 3937: TonB_Ech is a member of the enterobacterial TonB family

Laboratoire de Pathologie Végétale, UMR INRA/INA-PG, 16 rue Claude Bernard, 75231 Paris cedex 05, France¹

Author for correspondence: Corine Enard. Tel: +33 1 44 08 17 06. Fax: +33 1 44 08 16 31. e-mail: enard{at}inapg.inra.fr

The pectinolytic enterobacterium Erwinia chrysanthemi 3937 causes a systemic disease in its natural host, the African violet (Saintpaulia ionantha). It produces two structurally unrelated siderophores, chrysobactin and achromobactin. Chrysobactin makes a large contribution to invasive growth of the bacterium in its host. Insertion mutants of a chrysobactin-defective strain were constructed and screened on the universal CAS-agar medium used for siderophore detection. A set of mutants affected in the production of achromobactin were identified. This paper describes a mutant affected in the transport of all the ferrisiderophores used by the bacterium as iron sources. Molecular analysis revealed that the insertion mutation disrupts the tonB gene. The predicted Er. chrysanthemi TonB protein has a molecular mass of 27600 Da and shares 20–58% identity with the TonB proteins from 20 other bacterial species. The pathogenicity of the tonB mutant was assessed by inoculation of African violets. The impairment in the spread of symptoms was similar in the tonB mutant to that in chrysobactin-defective mutants. However, the pectinolytic activity, the major pathogenicity determinant in Er. chrysanthemi, appeared to be stimulated twofold in the tonB mutant.

Keywords: iron transport, siderophore, achromobactin, chrysobactin, pathogenicity

Abbreviations: EDDHA, ethylenediamine-N-N'-bis(2-hydroxyphenylacetic acid)

The GenBank accession number for the sequence reported in this paper is Y15888.

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