Water relations of Pseudomonas solanacearum

Abstract

The growth of 16 strains of Pseudomonas solanacearum at different water activities was investigated. These studies were undertaken in order to understand the adaptive mechanisms to osmotic stress of bacteria colonizing plants and to elucidate bacterial persistence when the efforts to eradicate disease fail. Due to inadequate growth of some strains on GYS medium, 3 strains, 66, 64 and 46, were selected for further investigation. These strains showed varied growth patterns on growth media at different water activities, with strain 66 showing the highest tolerance at very low water activity, that is, at 0.970, than the other two strains. The variation observed in the osmotolerance of the strains is an indication of the subtle differences among the strains of the same species.

Keywords: Pseudomonas solanacearum, water activity, osmotolerance, osmotic stress

African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 9(35), pp. 5767-5774, 30 August, 2010