Characterization of Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae isolates associated with bacterial blight in Lathyrus spp. and sources of resistance

摘要

The diploid annual legume species, Lathyrus sativus L., also known as grass pea, and L. cicera L., also known as chickling pea, are neglected species although they are widely grown as pulse crops for human food and also as grain feed or as forage in many of the harshest agro-environments of the world. The surface devoted to these two crops is increasing in Spain, where they were traditionally grown. The presence of bacterial blight among these crops was detected in fields located in the North part of the Central Spanish Meseta during the 2008–9 and 2009–10 seasons. Metabolic-biochemical tests, inoculation experiments in different hosts and molecular markers identified the causal agent as Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae. This work represents the first description of the occurrence of P. syringae pv. syringae in Lathyrus spp. Bacteria isolated from these two plant species were also pathogenic and very aggressive in other cool season legume species. Rep-PCR patterns showed a close similarity among the P. syringae pv. syringae samples collected within each Lathyrus species, and that the bacterial isolates from Lathyrus spp. were very similar to strains of this pathogen isolated from common and hairy vetch, and from pea. Multilocus sequencing typing confirmed the similarity of one of these isolates with database P. syringae pv. syringae sequences. Most of the L. cicera landraces evaluated for resistance to P. syringae pv. syringae were susceptible or highly susceptible, but some promising resistance sources to this pathogen were found under controlled conditions.