Bacterial panicle blight caused by Burkholderia glumae is one of the most severe seed-borne bacterial diseases of rice in the world. Currently, this disease has affected many countries of Asia, Africa, South and North America. It is a typical example of the shifting from minor plant disease to major disease due to the changes of environmental conditions. Some virulent factors of B. glumae have been identified, including toxoflavins and lipases, whose productions are dependent on the Tof I/Tof R quorum-sensing system, and type III effectors. In spite of its economic significance, neither effective control measure for this disease nor resistant rice variety is currently available. In recent years, genomics, transcriptomics and other molecular methods have provided useful information for better understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying B. glumae virulence and the rice defence mechanisms against pathogens. For the prevention of this pathogen, our laboratory has developed a rapid and sensitive multiplex PCR assay for detecting and distinguishing B. glumae from other Burkholderia species. This improved understanding of B. glumae will shed new light on bacterial panicle blight disease management.
Burkholderia glumae causing seedling rot and grain rot of rice was listed as a plant quarantine disease of China in 2007. It＇s quite necessary to set up effective detection methods for the pathogen to manage further dispersal of this disease. The present study combined the real-time PCR method with classical PCR to increase the detecting efficiency, and to develop an accurate, rapid and sensitive method to detect the pathogen in the seed quarantine for effective management of the disease. The results showed that all the tested strains of B. glumae produced about 139 bp specific fragments by the real-time PCR and the general PCR methods, while others showed negative PCR result. The bacteria could be detected at the concentrations of 1×10^4 CFU/mL by general PCR method and at the concentrations below 100 CFU/mL by real-time fluorescence PCR method. B. glumae could be detected when the inoculated and healthy seeds were mixed with a proportion of 1：100.
