Disease resistance and terminal fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis of endophyte communities in <i>Methylobacterium</i>-inoculated <i>in vitro-</i>grown potato plants.

<p>(A) Resistance of <i>in vitro-</i>grown potato cvs. Blue Congo, Timo, Pito, Matilda (B, T, P, M) to <i>Pectobacterium atrosepticum</i> induced by <i>Methylobacterium</i> sp. IMBG290 applied at densities 10⁵ 10⁶, 10⁷ and 10⁸ CFU ml⁻¹ (5, 6, 7 and 8). (B) T-RFLP analysis of bacterial communities of shoots of the different potato cultivars at 10⁵ inoculation density of <i>Methylobacterium</i> sp. IMBG290 (m) where asterisk indicates challenge inoculated plants. (C) T-RFLP analysis of bacterial communities of shoots (S) and roots (R) of Blue Congo inoculated at 10⁵ and 10⁸ densities. Disease resistance data are mean ± SD (<i>n</i> = 5), letters indicate significant difference between treatments and control by Student’s <i>t</i>-test (a, b and c indicate P<0.05, 0.01 and 0.001, respectively). Cluster plots generated by Additive Main Effects and Multiplicative Interaction (AMMI) analysis are constructed from three T-RFLP replicates and contain the information on beta diversity (Beta), the percentage of the main (M) and interaction (I) effects, the principal T-RFs responsible for the data ordination for each of the interaction principal components axes (IPCA1 and 2), and the percentage of variance captured by each of the axes. Different shapes indicate grouping patterns.