Genetics of Phytopathogenic Bacteria

Abstract

During the last 15 years, molecular genetics has generated a vast body of information on the mechanisms of the interactions between phytopathogenic bacteria and their host plants. In our last review on this subject (Ahlemeyer and Eichenlaub 2001), we focused on the Gram-negative bacteria where the understanding of the plant-microbe interaction has reached a relatively advanced stage. This is of course mainly due to the fact that Gram-negative bacteria have attracted the attention of numerous research groups, since they are generally easier to handle and genetic methods for an in-depth analysis are available. Also, there are more Gram-negative plant pathogenic bacteria known than Grampositive. However, among the Gram-positive bacteria there are a number of agriculturally quite important plant pathogens some of which have been studied genetically to some extent.