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Plant-Insect Ecosystems

Student Competition 10-Minute Paper

Undergrad P-IE: Biodiversity, Biocontrol, and Resistance On-Demand Presentations

Distribution of insecticidal activity across the genus Pseudomonas

On-Demand
Student Competition On-Demand

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Daniela Yanez

    Graduate Student
    University of British Columbia
    Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    • Co-Author(s)

  • CH

    Cara Haney

    University of British Columbia
    Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

  • JC

    Juli Carrillo

    Assistant Professor
    University of British Columbia
    Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

The genus Pseudomonas includes Gram-negative bacteria the live in a wide range of environments and on diverse hosts. Pseudomonas is among the most complex genera with the largest number of species. Pseudomonas strains exhibit a variety of ecological lifestyles ranging from human and plant pathogens to beneficial plant and animal-associated strains. The Pseudomonas fluorescens group exhibits diverse effects on plant and insect hosts. These range from beneficial effects on plants and infection and killing of insect larvae. How Pseudomonas infect different hosts and overcome each immune system is still largely unknown. However, previous studies on insecticidal activity point to a highly multifactorial nature, with different genes involved in the process. Pseudomonas fluorescens is not the only Pseudomonas clade with insecticidal activity. Insecticidal activity has previously been reported within the P. protegens and P. chlororaphis sub-clades and P. taiwanensis and P. entomophila. Thus, my work aims to explore the distribution and extent of the insecticidal ability throughout the whole Pseudomonas genus by combining bioinformatics and insect oral infection assays. Here, I found a strong correlation between insecticidal activity and the presence/absence of genes associated with insecticidal activity across different Pseudomonas strains.