Pathogenic and Molecular Characteristics of Agrobacterium vitis strains isolated from Grapevine in Korea

Agrobacterium vitis is a causal agent of crown-gall disease on grapevine. In Korea, grapevine variety (GeoBong) have severely been infected by the bacteria since stems of the variety were buried in soil for overwintering. Infection ratio over 70-80％ was observed on 7 years old GeoBong grapevine in Ansung and Cheonan. PCR specific primers for A. vitis strains were designed using nucleotide sequences of vir A gene in Ti-Plasmid, pheA gene in chromosomal DNA and a URP-PCR polymorphic band. Three hundred bacterial strains were isolated from the different 80 galls formed on GeoBong grapevine in Cheonan and Ansung of Korea and were screened to identify A. vitis using the three specific PCR primers for Agrobacterium vitis. Twenty-four bacterial strains that are detected by the primers were further confirmed by pathogenicity and biochemical methods. To investigate the genomic diversity of the bacterial strains, twenty primers of 20 mer referred to universal rice primers (URP) were applied for PCR fingerprinting, Of them, URP2R and URP2F primers could effectively be used to detect polymorphism within the bacterial strains.