Potatoes left alone in humid conditions and moist conditions start arise an unappetizing pinkish goop . This is an transmission ( and resulting decomposition ) caused byClostridium puniceumbacteria . According to a newSciencestudy , these pathogens release antibiotics to keep other microbes off their potato , and these same molecules also help the bacteria survive in otherwise hostile , oxygen - rich environments – like your kitchen counter .
C. puniceumis an obligate anaerobe ; it can only experience in the absence of atomic number 8 . So researchers have long perplex over how its slimy rot can grow on a genus Tuber in an aerophilic , or oxygenise , surround . To investigate , a team led byChristian Hertweckfrom the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology in Germany inject potatoes ( Solanum tuberosum ) with the bacterium . Over the next four days , they watched as decomposition come with the aggregation of pinkish paint and slime . When they study the various component part using a technique called liquid chromatography , the researchers sequester two products of interest : clostrubins A and B.
These metabolite demonstrated antimicrobial dimension against several common , aerobic white potato pathogens ( with cracking names ) – easy rot , ring rot , and common scab – suggesting that clostrubins helpC. puniceumsurvive in oxygenize environments . Furthermore , clostrubin A show strong antibacterial bodily process against the human “ superbug ” pathogensMRSAandvancomycin - resistant enterococci . This indicate that clostrubins might be produced by the plant pathogen to battle microbial competitors .
Next , the team seek to create a tune ofC. puniceumthat lack these clostrubins by sequencing the bacterium ’s genome and then knocking down the cistron for clostrubin A. Under oxygen - deprived conditions , the clostrubin - damaging mutant ofC. puniceumled to like bacteria growth and Irish potato decomposition as normal , unchanged bacteria . However , in the presence of normal atmospheric oxygen concentrations , the increment of the mutants was dramatically reduced . They could n’t infect potato in atmosphere .
Clostrubins , as it turn over out , serve dual routine : they countenance the endurance of this anaerobic pathogen in an oxygen - rich atmosphere and ward off vie microbes . If we can harness these antibacterial properties , we might be able to thin this wasteful statistic . About a quarter of vegetable food for thought is lost worldwide because of infective plant disease .
