Electron microscopy enabled researchers to see for the first time how a bacteria that kills grape vines is able to move through the plants at the cell level. (Credit: (Photo courtesy of Texas AgriLife Research))

ScienceDaily (Mar. 15, 2010) — Like a band of detectives surveying the movement of a criminal, researchers using photographic technology have caught at least one culprit in the act.

In this case, electron microscopy was used to watch a deadly bacteria breakdown cell walls in wine grape plants — an image that previously had not been witnessed. The study will be published in Botany.

"Basically, we've been interested in determining how the bacteria moves," said Dr. B. Greg Cobb, Texas AgriLife Research plant physiologist in College Station. "How do they go from one part of the plant to another?"

The death of wine grape plants from Pierce's Disease is a serious threat to wineries from Texas to California, Cobb noted, and no one has been able to stop or reverse the effects of the bacteria that is injected into the vines by an insect known as the glassy-winged sharpshooter.

The bacteria that causes Pierce's Disease, Xylella fastidiosa, colonizes a plant over a period of time causing it to weaken and die.

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