Cotton bacterial blight (CBB), caused by Xanthomonas citri pv. malvacearum, was a major disease of cotton in the United States in the early part of the twentieth century. The reemergence of CBB revealed many gaps in our understanding of this important disease. In this study, we employed a wild-type (WT) field isolate of X. citri pv. malvacearum from Georgia (U.S.A.) to generate a nonpathogenic hrcV mutant lacking a functional type-III secretion system (T3SS-). We tagged the WT and T3SS- strains with an auto-bioluminescent Tn7 reporter and compared colonization patterns of CBB-susceptible and CBB-resistant cotton seedlings using macroscopic image analysis and bacterial load enumeration. WT and T3SS- X. citri pv. malvacearum strains colonized cotton cotyledons of CBB-resistant and CBB-susceptible cotton cultivars. However, X. citri pv. malvacearum populations were significantly higher in CBB-susceptible seedlings inoculated with the WT strain. Additionally, WT and T3SS- X. citri pv. malvacearum strains systemically colonized true leaves, although at different rates. Finally, we observed that seed-to-seedling transmission of X. citri pv. malvacearum may involve systemic spread through the vascular tissue of cotton plants. These findings yield novel insights into potential X. citri pv. malvacearum reservoirs for CBB outbreaks.
Keywords: Xanthomonas citri pv. malvacearum; bacteria; cotton; host–pathogen interaction; scanning electron microscopy; seed pathology; vascular colonization.