Assessment of biodiversity (polymorphism) among Xanthomonas spp. by ERIC PCR

The genus of the Xanthomonas is composed ofphytopathogenic bacterial species that cause disease indifferent crop plants, resulting in significant crop lossesworldwide. Each species infects specific hosts. In additionto causing disease in crops, most of the species producexanthan gum via an aerobic fermentation process xanthan gum is an important biopolymer and is used in thefood, petroleum, and cosmetic industries. Many studieshave used molecular biology techniques with diverseXanthomonas species to show high levels of geneticdiversity (polymorphism) in the genus as well as withinspecies. On the other hand, pathovars from differentspecies have shown strong similarities, resulting in a totalreclassification of the genus. In this study biodiversity ofXanthomonas spp. was assessed by ERIC PCR.In factfamilies of short interspersed repetitive elements havebeen described in bacteria, i.e., Enterobacterial repetitiveintergenic consensus (ERIC) sequence. Sequence datafor ERIC element have been described only from gramnegative enteric bacteria and closely related taxa. In thisstudy, we assessed profile of 15 Xanthomonas strains.First total bacterial DNA extracted by phenol-chloroformmethod. Primers to ERIC sequences have been usedin polymerase chain reactions designed to amplifyregions between neighboring repetitive elements. Ourresults showed bacteria have different pattern of bandson the gel after electrophoresis. Some bands on theelectrophoresis gel were the same among these strainsand other bands were different. This method showedunique profile for each strain. That means these bacteriahave different genotypes and exhibit some levels ofpolymorphisms. In fact ERIC- PCR is useful and rapidmethod for differentiation among Xanthomonas species.

کلیدواژه ها:

Biodiversity ، ERIC PCR ، Xanthomonas species