Nucleoside/nucleotide pools in wheat leaves naturally infected with Erysiphe graminis. I. Changes in the flag leaf

Nucleoside and nucleotide contents of the flag leaves of wheat plants, naturally infected with the powdery mildew fungus Erysiphe graminis were analysed in a field experiment. Fungicide treated plants were used as controls. Only low levels of infection occurred during the experiment (1% to 4% of the leaf area), but they resulted in higher leaf dry weight, and lower levels of chlorophyll, inorganic phosphate and NADP compared with the control plants. Although the total adenine nucleotide pools were the same in the flag leaves of infected and control plants, the energy charge values were slightly larger in the infected flag leaves. The total nucleoside content was higher in the infected flag leaves than the control; while the adenosine pool decreased, that of uridine increased strongly. Although the level of UDP-glucose was similar in the flag leaves of infected and control plants only decreasing slightly with time, UDP-N-acetylglucosamine, a precursor for fungal chitin biosynthesis, showed very different behaviour. The amounts of UDP-N-acetylglucosamine were very low in the control plants but increased greatly in the infected flag leaves to very high values (900nmol g⁻¹ d.wt) obviously reflecting exploitation of the hosts metabolism by the fungus for precursors for chitin biosynthesis. The size of the uridine pools was also correlated with the degree of infection and probably reflected recycling of the UDP moiety.