'Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus', causal agent of citrus huanglongbing, is reduced by treatment with brassinosteroids

Abstract

Huanglongbing (HLB) constitutes the most destructive disease of citrus worldwide, yet no established efficient management measures exist for it. Brassinosteroids, a family of plant steroidal compounds, are essential for plant growth, development and stress tolerance. As a possible control strategy for HLB, epibrassinolide was applied to as a foliar spray to citrus plants infected with the causal agent of HLB, 'Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus'. The bacterial titers were reduced after treatment with epibrassinolide under both greenhouse and field conditions but were stronger in the greenhouse. Known defense genes were induced in leaves by epibrassinolide. With the SuperSAGE technology combined with next generation sequencing, induction of genes known to be associated with defense response to bacteria and hormone transduction pathways were identified. The results demonstrate that epibrassinolide may provide a useful tool for the management of HLB. This is an open access article, free of all copiright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.