Pathogenicity of the pine wood nematode at different developmental stages

The ability of the pine wood nematode,Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, a pathogen that causes pine wilt disease, to kill cortical cells of Japanese black pine,Pinus thunbergii, during early development of the disease was conjectured to be a function of nematode developmental stage. A tangential segment of bark was removed from a 2-cm-long current-year stem. The cortex-exposed segments with cut cortical resin canals were designated as + RC-segments and those without them as − RC-segments. When a nematode population containing many older juveniles and adults (NL) was inoculated onto the cut surface, the − RC-segments were still alive 4 d after inoculation, as were non-inoculated control segments. When cortex-exposed segments were inoculated with either a nematode population containing many younger nematodes (NS) or with nematodes isolated from inoculated pine cuttings that also contained many younger juveniles, most tissue cells in − RC-segments died 4 d after inoculation, suggesting that younger juveniles killed pine cells directly, in contrast with older juveniles and adults. When nematodes were inoculated onto + RC-segments in which they could easily enter resin canals, both NL and NS killed the segment tissues. This suggests that NL is pathogenic to pine cells while living in resin canals. Such differences in the pathogenicity of NL and NS to pine parenchymatous cells were also demonstrated in a pathogenicity assay system using bark peelings, which allowed an estimate of direct attack on the cambial cells by nematodes. Based on these results, we hypothesize that younger juveniles are pathogenic to pine parenchymatous cells, while adults and older juveniles are not pathogenic. This work was supported in part by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (No.01440012 and 06454088) and for Young Scientists (to K.I.) from Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports of Japan, and by a grant from PROBRAIN.