The Apple Fruitlet Model System for Fire Blight Disease

Fire blight is a perennial disease affecting apple and pear production worldwide. Development of resistant cultivars and disease control measures are crucial aspects of managing fire blight. Furthermore, the study of the causal agent, the Gram-negative bacterium Erwinia amylovora, has led to important insights into molecular plant-microbe interactions. However, fire blight does not have a suitable model host, since its host range is limited to plants with complex genetics and relatively limited resources for genetic analysis. Here, we present a rationale for using apple fruitlets as a potential fire blight model host system, and describe a protocol for quantitative fruit inoculation, bacterial growth measurement, and symptom assessment. The use of apple fruitlets is applicable to the molecular genetic analysis of E. amylovora, including high-throughput genetic screens for E. amylovora virulence-defective mutants, and is potentially useful to study host resistance and responses to E. amylovora as well.