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Pantoea agglomerans is a Gram-negative bacterium belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae.

It was formerly called Enterobacter agglomerans, or Erwinia herbicola and is an ubiquitous bacterium commonly isolated from plant surfaces, seeds, fruit, and animal or human feces and can be found throughout a honeybee's environment.[1]

Contents 1	Bacteriology 2	Clinical isolates 3	References 4	External links Bacteriology[edit source] Pantoea agglomerans can serve as a plant pathogen competitor for the management of plant diseases. Fire blight, a plant disease caused by bacterium Erwinia amylovora, is commonly found in pear and apple crops.[2] After coming in contact with Erwinia amylovora, Pantoea agglomerans produces antibiotic properties that are toxic to the fire blight-inducing bacterium. It has been identified that it is possible that habitat modification or exclusion may also play a role in the effectiveness of the antibiosis of the fire blight biological control. [3]

Environmental factors influencing the growth and spread of Pantoea agglomerans include winter chilling, good sunlight exposure and air circulation.[4] Fruit-bearing trees, such as apple and pear trees are common Pantoea agglomerans hosts and during blooming season the fruit-bearing trees receive a period of chilling to revive them from their dormant state in the following Spring. In terms of sunlight exposure, fruit trees generally grow best in warm, moist and well-lit environments. Thus Pantoea agglomerans must be able to survive under these conditions in order to infect healthy plant hosts. Pantoea agglomerans is an aerobic bacterium, so it requires a certain level of air circulation in order to survive.[5]

Pantoea agglomerans is found in the gut of locusts. The locusts have adapted to use the guaiacol produced by Pantoea agglomerans to initiate the synchronized swarming of locusts.[6]

It is also commonly found as a symbiont in the gut of mosquitoes. Scientists have created a genetically modified strain of Pantoea agglomerans produce antimalarial effector molecules. Inoculating mosquitoes with this strain reduced the prevalence of the Malaria causing organism (Plasmodium) by up to 98%.[7]

Clinical isolates[edit source] Pantoea agglomerans is occasionally reported to be an opportunistic pathogen in immunocompromised patients, causing wound, blood, and urinary-tract infections. Infections are typically acquired from infected vegetation parts penetrating the skin. Contaminated intravenous fluids or blood products are only rarely the causal agent.[8] Bloodstream infection can lead to disseminated disease and end-organ infection, mainly septic arthritis, but also endophthalmitis, periostitis, endocarditis and osteomyelitis in humans.[9] When clinical strains were cultured, it was difficult to taxonomically identify the clinical strains from the pathogenic strains.

Using the biochemical panels commonly employed in medical diagnostics it is difficult to differentiate Pantoea agglomerans from other species of the same genus or from members of related families such as Enterobacter, Klebsiella, and Serratia spp.[10] This has led to confusion surrounding its pathogenicity as molecular studies based on DNA sequencing have disproved the identity of several clinical isolates initially reported as Pantoea agglomerans.[11][12] For the precise identification of Pantoea agglomerans non-culture based methods such as Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) or Whole-Cell MALDI-TOF MS are recommended.[13]

More recent studies have shown that Pantoea agglomerans can help to treat human or animal diseases due to the wide variety of antibiotics derived from it. These antibiotics include: herbicolin, pantocins, phenazine and many more. In addition, Pantoea agglomerans may act as a preservative, have bioremediation properties, and be able to fight against harmful pathogens in plants. A Japanese researcher was able to isolate IP-PA1 in Pantoea agglomerans and found that the lipopolysaccharide has a low molecular mass giving it unique properties. This bacterium was also found to use macrophage activity to regulate homeostasis, giving Pantoea agglomerans healing properties. These properties include: "tumours, hyperlipidaemia, diabetes, ulcer, various infectious diseases, atopic allergy and stress-induced immunosuppression".