Spatial and temporal analysis of coffee wilt disease caused by Fusarium xylarioides in Coffea canephora

Coffee wilt disease (CWD) caused by Fusarium xylarioides, considered to be a soil-inhabiting fungus, is endemic in several African countries, affecting commercially important coffee species and causing serious economic losses. Coffee wilt disease development in naturally infected Coffea canephora fields at the Coffee Research Institute in Uganda was assessed from April 2001 to March 2006 to generate information about temporal and spatial spread of the disease. Maps of diseased trees were also generated from the data. Semi-variance analysis was performed on the data to show the spatio-temporal structure of disease. Host influence on the spatio-temporal structure was deduced from the distribution pattern of diseased and healthy trees and analysis of variance. Results show that the temporal disease epidemic progress was slow. The disease was found to spread from initial infections to healthy neighbouring trees, resulting in an aggregated pattern. An infected tree could infect up to three healthy trees away, in any direction. Disease foci formed and expanded with time, coalescing but punctuated in spots planted with resistant hosts. There were varying levels of susceptibility among host genotypes, affecting the rates and levels of epidemic development. The implications of the findings to the control of CWD are discussed.     

玉蜀黍赤霉有性重组体的诱导及其生物学特性

 本研究以硝酸盐营养缺陷型突变体(nit)和多菌灵抗性为遗传标记,在5个所选菌株中设计了3个玉蜀黍赤霉病菌Gibberella zeae的杂交组合,使各菌株之间进行杂交,从而诱导有性重组体。从各杂交组合的后代中任意挑选出3个有性重组体,比较了这些有性重组体与其亲本在无性和有性阶段的主要生物学性状。结果表明,玉蜀黍赤霉中的nit基因及对杀菌剂多菌灵的抗药性基因可以通过有性杂交的方式重组,即发生了有性重组。有性重组体与其亲本在菌落生长、培养性状和致病性方面没有显著差异;但某些有性重组体中,产孢量和产子囊壳能力方面存在一定差异。总体看来,有性重组体仍然保持了较高的适合度。因此,可以认为有性重组在玉蜀黍赤霉群体对多菌灵抗药性发生发展以及群体遗传进化中可能起着重要的作用。     

Complementary host–pathogen genetic analyses of the role of fumonisins in the Zea mays–Gibberella moniliformis interaction

Zea mays often is colonized with the fungus Gibberella moniliformis, which produces fumonisin toxins. The role of fumonisins in seedling colonization and blight was studied using complementary genetic analyses of host and pathogen. Only one of two fumonisin B1 (FB1)-insensitive maize backcross lines was more resistant than the FB1-sensitive parent to seedling blight, indicating that the increase in FB1-insensitivity was not associated with an increase in resistance. FB1-producing and nonproducing isogenic fungal strains did not differ in ability to cause seedling blight, but the FB1-producing strain was more effective in systemic colonization of seedlings in reciprocal strain challenge tests. Together, these and previous results indicate that the role of fumonisins depends on complex environmental and genetic contexts in this host–pathogen interaction.     

A high-throughput glasshouse bioassay to detect crown rot resistance in wheat germplasm

A high-throughput and reliable seedling bioassay to screen wheat germplasm for crown rot resistance was developed. Single wheat seedlings were grown in square seedling punnets in a glasshouse and inoculated with a monoconidial Fusarium pseudograminearum isolate 10 days after emergence. The punnets were laid horizontally on their side and a 10- µ L inoculum droplet placed on the stem base. Seedlings were incubated at near-saturated relative humidity, and crown rot severity was assessed 35 days after inoculation. Studies on the duration of incubation period, inoculum concentration and temperature were carried out to optimize these parameters. Seedling growth at 25/15(±5)°C in a glasshouse and 48-h incubation at near-saturated RH in darkness gave the best results. When crown rot resistance rankings of 16 Australian cultivars from the bioassay were compared with their field performance, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was highly significant. This indicated that the seedling bioassay mimicked field resistance to crown rot in adult plants. A bootstrap resampling analysis showed little or no improvement in the coefficient of variation with an increasing number of replications, indicating a high level of precision and reproducibility. By detecting small but consistent differences in crown rot severity, the bioassay proved effective in large-scale screening for partial resistance: already over 1400 wheat genotypes have been screened. The high degree of precision makes this an invaluable tool in the understanding of pathogen aggressiveness, host specialization and parasitic fitness.     

Pathogenicity and mycotoxin production by <Emphasis Type="Italic">Fusarium proliferatum</Emphasis> isolated from onion and garlic in Serbia

Fusarium proliferatum can occur on a wide range of economically important vegetable plants but its role in disease is not always well established. In 2000 and 2001, from forty-one field samples of wilting onion and garlic plants in Serbia, F. proliferatum as the predominant fungal species was isolated from root and bulbs. Seventy isolates were firstly characterized for their sexual fertility and were shown to be mostly members of Gibberella intermedia (sixty-seven of seventy isolates, the remaining three isolates were unfertile), the sexual stage of F. proliferatum (syn. mating population D of G. fujikuroi complex). A selected set of eleven F. proliferatum isolates from both hosts were also tested for their pathogenicity and toxigenicity. Although onion and garlic plants were susceptible to all isolates, onion plants showed a significantly higher disease severity index. Six of the eleven isolates of F. proliferatum produced fumonisin B₁ from 25 to 3000 μg g⁻¹, and beauvericin from 400 to 550 μg g⁻¹; ten isolates produced fusaric acid from 80 to 950 μg g⁻¹ and moniliformin from 50 to 520 μg g⁻¹. Finally, all isolates produced fusaproliferin up to 400 μg g⁻¹. These results confirm F. proliferatum as an important pathogen of garlic and onion in Europe and that there is a potential mycotoxin accumulation risk in contaminated plants of both garlic and onion.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Fusarium mangiferae</Emphasis> associated with mango malformation in the Sultanate of Oman

Mango malformation, caused by Fusarium mangiferae, represents the most important floral disease of mango. The first symptoms of this disease were noticed in the beginning of 2005 in plantations at Sohar in the Sultanate of Oman. The affected inflorescences were abnormally enlarged and branched with heavy and dried-out panicles. Based on morphology and DNA-sequence data for the genes encoding translation elongation factor 1α and β-tubulin, the pathogen associated with these symptoms was identified as F. mangiferae.     

Molecular identification of Fusarium spp. associated with bakanae disease of rice in Italy and assessment of their pathogenicity

Between 2006 and 2008, 146 isolates of Fusarium spp. were obtained from bakanae‐diseased rice plants and seeds from the major rice‐growing regions of Italy. These isolates were identified based on translation elongation factor (EF‐1α) sequence and pathogenicity tests were used to assess their aggressiveness against the susceptible rice cultivar Galileo. Use of the EF‐1α sequence gave reliable identification and showed that Fusarium fujikuroi, the causal agent of bakanae disease, was the most abundant Fusarium spp. isolated. These data were confirmed by inoculation of the isolates to rice seeds which were then germinated in the greenhouse, showing that only F. fujikuroi isolates were able to cause bakanae disease. Pathogenic isolates were identified with different levels of aggressiveness. Phylogenetic analysis based on EF‐1α sequences generated a tree which separated the various Fusarium species into different clusters with high bootstrap values.     

Genetic diversity of Australian Fusarium graminearum and F. pseudograminearum

Genotypic diversity in Fusarium pseudograminearum and F. graminearum from Australia and the relationship between diversity and pathogen aggressiveness for head blight and/or crown rot of wheat were examined. Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis revealed a high level of genotypic diversity within each species. Sixty-three of the 149 AFLP loci were significantly different between the two species and 70 of 72 F. pseudograminearum and 56 of 59 F. graminearum isolates had distinct haplotypes. When head blight and crown rot severity data from a recently published work on isolates representing the entire range of aggressiveness were used, only the genotypic diversity of F. pseudograminearum was significantly associated with its aggressiveness for the two diseases. Cluster analyses clearly demonstrated the polyphyletic structures that exist in both pathogen populations. The spatial diversity within F. graminearum was high within a single field, while frequent gene flow ( N _m ∼ 14) and a low fixation index ( G _st = 0·03) were recorded among F. pseudograminearum isolates from the adjacent states of New South Wales and Queensland. The differences in population structure between the heterothallic F. pseudograminearum (teleomorph G. coronicola ) and the homothallic F. graminearum (teleomorph G. zeae ) were not as pronounced as expected given their contrasting mating systems. Neither species was panmictic or strictly clonal. This points to sexual recombination in F. pseudograminearum , suggesting that ascospores of G. coronicola may also play a role in its biology and epidemiology.     

豆油对藤仓赤霉菌978菌株产赤霉素GA3发酵的影响

在藤仓赤霉菌（Gibberella fujikuroi）978菌株产赤霉素GA3的发酵前期,研究了发酵初始培养基中添加不同浓度豆油对发酵过程脂肪酶活性的影响,结果表明：添加1．0％（W／V）的豆油,在发酵48～60h仍能对脂肪酶进行诱导,从而维持较高的脂肪酶活性,有利于菌体利用补加的豆油合成赤霉素GA3。在此基础上进一步探讨了补油发酵过程中豆油补加时间和补加浓度对赤霉素GA3合成的影响,试验表明：补油发酵起始培养基中添加豆油1．0％（W／V）、发酵60h补加4．0%（W／V）豆油能显著提高赤霉素GA3产量,与全淀粉发酵培养基发酵相比,在摇瓶发酵水平上赤霉素GA3的产量提高了23％,在10L发酵罐上产量提高了40％。