On-site applicable diagnostic fluorescent probe for fire blight bacteria

Yuna Jung; Ji Hye Jin; Minji Jung; In Sun Hwang; Nguyen Trung Vu; Yoon Kyung Park; Na Hee Kim; Ki-Ho Park; Chang-Sik Oh; Dokyoung Kim

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106557

On-site applicable diagnostic fluorescent probe for fire blight bacteria

iScience. 2023 Apr 1;26(4):106557. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106557. eCollection 2023 Apr 21.

Authors

Yuna Jung¹, Ji Hye Jin¹, Minji Jung², In Sun Hwang³, Nguyen Trung Vu⁴, Yoon Kyung Park¹, Na Hee Kim¹, Ki-Ho Park⁵, Chang-Sik Oh⁶, Dokyoung Kim^{1

7

8

9

10

11}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical Science, Graduate School, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
² Medical Science Research Institute, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
³ Department of Horticultural Biotechnology, College of Life Sciences, Kyung Hee University, Yongin 17104, Republic of Korea.
⁴ Graduate School of Green-Bio Science, Kyung Hee University, Yongin 17104, Republic of Korea.
⁵ Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
⁶ Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea.
⁷ Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
⁸ Medical Research Center for Bioreaction to Reactive Oxygen Species and Biomedical Science Institute, Core Research Institute (CRI), Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
⁹ Center for Converging Humanities, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
¹⁰ KHU-KIST Department of Converging Science and Technology, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
¹¹ UC San Diego Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.

Abstract

Fire blight is a representative plant infection that contaminates edible plants and causes socio-economic problems in agricultural and livestock industries globally. It is caused by the pathogen Erwinia amylovora (E. amylovora) creates lethal plant necrosis and spreads rapidly across plant organs. We newly disclose the fluorogenic probe B-1 for real-time on-site detection of fire blight bacteria for the first time. B-1 exhibited no emission signals but manifested bright emission properties in the presence of fire blight bacteria. Based on these features, fluorescence imaging of the fire blight bacteria and its real-time detection from the infected host plant tissues were conducted. The detection limit against E. amylovora was 10² CFU/mL, which had excellent sensitivity. The fluorogenic probe-based on-site diagnostic technology was supplemented by introducing a new portable UV device. This work holds enormous potential to be a new advanced tool for detecting fire blight in agricultural and livestock industries.

Keywords: Microbiology; Plant biotechnology; Plant pathology.