Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Improved Viability of Spray-Dried Pantoea agglomerans for Phage-Carrier Mediated Control of Fire Blight

Nassereldin Ibrahim
ORCID logo ,
Darlene Nesbitt
,
Tracy Quo
,
Janet Lin
,
Antonet Svircev
,
Qi Wang
,
Joel T. Weadge
ORCID logo ,
Hany Anany
*
Version 1 : Received: 26 December 2023 / Approved: 27 December 2023 / Online: 27 December 2023 (05:59:33 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Ibrahim, N.; Nesbitt, D.; Guo, Q.T.; Lin, J.; Svircev, A.; Wang, Q.; Weadge, J.T.; Anany, H. Improved Viability of Spray-Dried Pantoea agglomerans for Phage-Carrier Mediated Control of Fire Blight. Viruses 2024, 16, 257. Ibrahim, N.; Nesbitt, D.; Guo, Q.T.; Lin, J.; Svircev, A.; Wang, Q.; Weadge, J.T.; Anany, H. Improved Viability of Spray-Dried Pantoea agglomerans for Phage-Carrier Mediated Control of Fire Blight. Viruses 2024, 16, 257.

Abstract

Fire blight, caused by Erwinia amylovora, is a devastating bacterial disease that threatens world-wide production of apples and pears. In Canada and the US, streptomycin and kasugamycin are commonly used for the control of this pathogen. There is an urgent need for development of biocontrol agents (BCAs) that can be easily incorporated into integrated pest management pro-grams with high efficacy against streptomycin sensitive and resistant strains of E. amylovora. In addition, excessive use of antibiotics in agriculture has increased awareness of the possibility of antibiotic resistance gene transfer to human, animal and environmental microbes. To address this issue, a phage-carrier system (PCS) that combines Pantoea agglomerans as an antagonistic bacterial carrier of Erwinia phages as a double-pronged treatment for fire blight have been de-veloped. The low viability of P. agglomerans cells following spray drying challenged the industrial scale production of this PCS. In the present research, a spray drying protocol was developed for P. agglomerans by modifying the growth medium and the bacterial cell formulation using D(+)-trehalose and maltodextrin. The developed protocol is amenable to industrial scale pro-duction of the BCA/PCS. The P. agglomerans viability was greater than 90% after spray drying, had a prolonged shelf life of 4 months at 4 C, and the reconstituted cells showed an approximate 3 log reduction in E. amylovora counts with a green pear disc challenge assay.

Keywords

Biological control agent; Erwinia amylovora; antibiotic resistance; streptomycin; apple; pear

Subject

Biology and Life Sciences, Agricultural Science and Agronomy

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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