Bioinformatic basis to define the species formation within Pectobacterium and Dickeya bacterial genera

Soft rot Pectobacteriaceae (SRP) causing soft rot, aerial stem rot, and black leg diseases of potatoes and vegetables pose serious economic threat to agriculture World-wide. In this work we have studied phylogenetic relations within the genera Pectobacterium and Dickeya applying a full-genome comparison approach. Phylogenetic trees were constructed using 16S rRNA sequences and different sets of housekeeping genes. Pan-genomic studies and proteomics was used to assess a suggested possibility of horizontal gene transfer. The analysis of NCBI environmental and metagenome databases have revealed possible SRP sequences belonging to the organisms not yet described taxonomically.