The relative food prosperity of the 1980s/1990s has been eroded in recent years through the convergence of a variety of factors, including climate change, population growth, foodborne pathogens, and microbial plant pathogens. Today, food security has become an urgent major global challenge. One important area of research that aims to aid the production of sufficient, safe, and nutritious food has focused on the plant-microbe interaction. Understanding this is an important prerequisite for the development of strategies to protect plants from pathogens and/or to prevent contamination of food with human pathogens. In this book, a team of respected scientists review the most important current topics to provide a timely overview on bacterial-plant interactions. The topics covered include: type III secretion systems and their role in the bacterial-host interaction * the Pseudomonas and Erwinia model systems and their application to other studies * the emerging plant pathogen Acidovorax * the Gram-positive phytopathogens Clavibacter, Streptomyces, and Rhodococcus * the colonization of plants by human bacterial pathogens * Pseudomonas biocontrol approaches * phage therapy. The book will be essential reading for every plant pathogen researcher, from the PhD student to the experienced scientist, and is recommended reading for researchers working on foodborne pathogens and bacterial pathogenesis. [Subject: Microbiology, Life Science, Pathology
