A new bacterial disease with gall formation on either trunks or twigs was found on Kakuremino (
Dendropanax trifidus Mak.) trees growing in Okinawa and Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. The surface of young galls was relatively smooth and light-green in color, but they became rough and light-brown to dark-brown with age. A pathogenic bacterium isolated from these galls was gram-negative rod with 1 to several polar flagella, aerobic and metabolized glucose oxidatively. Negative results were obtained with the tests such as kovács' oxidase, potato soft rot, hydrolysis of esculin and starch, arginine dihydrolase, nitrate reduction, KCN inhibition, indole production, gelatin liquefaction, methyl-red and Voges-Proskauer tests and growth at 41C and 4C. Positive results were obtained with the tests such as catalase, tobacco hypersensitive reaction, hydrolysis of Tween 80, production of H
2S, reducing substances from sucrose and fluorescent pigment production. The results of levan production varied among the isolates. Following organic compounds were utilized as a sole source of carbon: ribose, glucose, galactose, D-xylose, L-arabinose, fructose, sucrose, glycerol, inositol, mannitol, citrate, succinate, L-malate and D-, L-, and
meso-tartrate. Followings were not utilized: D-arabinose, L-rhamnose, lactose, maltose, D-cellobiose, D-trehalose, dextrin, glycogen, starch, inulin, D-sorbitol, adonitol, dulcitol, salicin, malonate, lactate, L-valine, L-arginine and β-alanine. Inoculation tests for the host range of the Kakuremino pathogen were conducted on trees of 82 species belonging to 40 families. The disease development was confirmed only on
Dendropanax trifidus, but not on other trees. From these results, the Kakuremino pathogen was identified as a new pathovar of
Pseudomonas syringae. The name of
P. syringae pv.
dendropanacis pv. nov. was proposed and the strain DT 1 (=ATCC 43298, NCPPB 3464, PDDCC 9150) was designated as the pathotype strain.
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