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ARS Home » Plains Area » College Station, Texas » Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center » Insect Control and Cotton Disease Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #352172
Title: A Serratia marcesens strains involved in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) boll infection by a prokaryote

Author
item Medrano, Enrique
item Glover, James
item Bell, Alois - Al
item BREWER, M - Texas A&M Agrilife

Submitted to: Current Microbiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/28/2021
Publication Date: 12/31/2021
Citation: Medrano, E.G., Glover, J.P., Bell, A.A., Brewer, M.J. 2021. A Serratia marcesens strains involved in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) boll infection by a prokaryote. Current Microbiology. 12:1565-1578. https://doi.org/10.4236/as.2021.1212100.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4236/as.2021.1212100

Interpretive Summary: In 2000, a previously unobserved inner cotton boll rot caused seed and fiber yield losses that reached 20%. Past work from our lab demonstrated that certain microorganisms are agents of the boll disease and are vectored by insects that feed using a piercing-sucking mechanism. Although the microbes are different species they have the common ability to infect and rot developing green bolls. Hence, we hypothesized that the cotton pathogens share a common set of genes involved in producing disease. This report provides the whole genome sequence of an infective bacterium that is associated with boll feeding by the verde plant bug, a prominent pest of south Texas grown cotton. Several cotton toxins were identified and this knowledge is fundamental to gaining an understanding of the boll infection process. The massive genome data set (5.5 million DNA points of information with over 4,400 predicted gene products) are critical to our ultimate goal of developing a farmer friendly system to directly detect/avoid pathogen effects.

Technical Abstract: Serratia species are Gram-negative bacteria consisting of isolates that can infect both animals and plants. The presented annotated genome is the first of a Serratia sp. (called CC119) that is a cotton boll pathogen. The opportunistic strain is associated with the Creontiades signatus that is a boll piercing-sucking insect.