Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am doing my project on how natural agents and chemicals can eliminate the bacteria Agrobacterium tumefaciens that causes crown gall disease in plants. The problem is, is that I do not know where to start with natural agents and chemicals to test. I am going to grow the plants with the bacteria in the soil already, and I wanted to see if anything would decrease the size of the tumors. I also plan to work with just the bacteria, so I can determine what causes it to regress.

Hi there,

A quick Google search for Agrobacterium tumefaciens gave me several sites that could help you get started.

I did find a (now outdated) site that had some interesting information regarding the chemicals used to control the bacterium: http://www.biology.ed.ac.uk/research/gr ... /crown.htm. The site also provides some references that may help you in your background research.

Start there, and please post back with further questions.

Heather

Hello,
Thank you for the link and suggestions. I found some chemicals that I could test against the bacteria, however, I cannot find any information on natural agents or nonharmful agents. I would like to test some things that would not harm the plant, but I do not know where to start. I appreciate any suggestions you have.

Thank you,
Piratesfan1972

Hi Piratesfan1972,

Here is a link to a scholarly article about some natural agents that were tested for antimicrobial properties: http://www.google.com/search?q=Agrobact ... d6d27162f3

I suggest that you do several searches on Google as well as Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com) to help you in your background research. (This time, I tried "Agrobacterium tumefaciens natural agents." This is not my area of expertise, so my suggestion is to use the same approach that I would take in looking for this kind of information. Just try different searches, use the references you find in relevant articles, and keep at it! Since crown gall disease is relevant to agriculture, there must be some research that has tried to find agents (chemical or natural) that do not harm the host plants.

Hope that helps! Please keep me posted with your progress.

Heather

Thank you for the advice! I'll keep you up to date!