Impact of some solvents and chemicals on the adsorption and lytic activity of Ralstonia solanacearum specific bacteriophages

Recently, bacteriophages have been utilized to control the harmful crop disease known as bacterial wilt. But since agricultural plants are often handled with a variety of chemicals (pesticides, fertilizers, and solvents), we evaluated how several regularly used solvents and chemicals affected the adsorption and lytic activity of the examined bacteriophages. This study reports the isolation and characterization of some virulent Ralstonia solanacearum (R. solanacearum isolates from different soil and potato tuber samples. Ten isolates gave positive morphological characters of virulent R. solanacearum. These isolates were chosen for analysis (based on the Pmx-PCR results) belonged to the phylotype II sequevar I since a 372-bp amplicon was found. Pathogenicity showed that all tested isolates were able to wilt tomato seedlings. Additionally, lytic phages specific to the identified R. solanacearum isolates are reported to have been isolated in this work. In order to identify possible interferences, we evaluated the impact of a few widely used compounds and solvents on the adsorption and lytic activity of examined bacteriophages. The lytic activity of the phages was significantly increased by potassium chloride (KCl) and calcium chloride (CaCl2) at higher concentrations (from 0.1 to 0.5 mM). The activity of ɸRS1, ɸRS2, and ɸRS3 bacteriophages was significantly reduced by copper sulfate (CuSO4) and copper chloride (CuCl2). In plots where phages are treated, it would seem sensible to avoid copper compounds and alcoholic solvents propanol, ethanol, and methanol.