Phage-mediated biocontrol against plant pathogenic bacteria
Résumé
Plant pathogenic bacteria can cause severe damaging diseases every year, ranging from spots, mosaic patterns or pustules on leaves and fruits, or smelly tuber rots to plant death, and collectively they cause losses of over $1 billion dollars worldwide to the food production chain. Antibiotics have been used against certain bacterial diseases with mixed results. To face dependence on the use of antibiotics and agrochemical products in agriculture, alternatives based on natural products are possible. Bacteriophages, also known informally as phages, have been used to treat infectious diseases since their discovery at the beginning of the 20th century. Phages can essentially propagate in two ways: the lytic cycle or the lysogenic pathway. Optimization of phage-based biocontrol requires a series of field and greenhouse experiments, since in vitro trials may not always fully reflect the harsh conditions of the real environment and of the different crops to cure.