13.07.2015 Views

10th INTERNATIONAL VERTICILLIUM SYMPOSIUM 16-20 ...

10th INTERNATIONAL VERTICILLIUM SYMPOSIUM 16-20 ...

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FUNGAL ADHESION TO PLANTS – THE FIRST STEP OFEARLY INFECTION AND SYSTEMIC COLONIZATION OFBRASSICA NAPUS BY <strong>VERTICILLIUM</strong> LONGISPORUM.TUAN VAN TRAN, SUSANNA A. BRAUS-STROMEYER AND GERHARD H.BRAUSInstitute of Microbiology and Genetics, Goettingen, GermanyE-mail: Tuan.Tran-van@biologie.uni-goettingen.deVerticillium longisporum is a major pathogen for oilseed rape (Brassicanapus). This fungus induces early senescence and causes severe economic losses. V.longisporum infects host-plants via the roots and lives biotrophically in the xylemvessels of B. napus. Currently no fungicides are available to cure infected plants.Adhesion is a crucial step for the early infection and colonization of many pathogenicfungi. Proteins required for adhesion of plant fungal pathogens play important rolesduring pre-penetration, growth, biofilm formation as well as pathogenicity.The goal of this project is to investigate adhesive proteins that may supportsuccessful infection and xylem vessel colonization of V. longisporum. Adhesioncomplementation assays in non-adherent yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae andbioinformatics analyses of the fungal cDNA library revealed ten genes encodingputatively secreted proteins that may be involved in adhesion of the fungus. We couldshow that eight of these putatively secreted proteins were up-regulated when thefungus interacted with roots of the host plant. In addition, two transcriptionalregulators from V. longisporum induce strong adhesion of S. cerevisae to the agarsurface. These transcription factors belong to the zinc finger family and were reportedto regulate many essential genes in filamentous fungi such as genes for toxinproduction, for conidial formation or for cell wall biosynthesis, etc. We are currentlyanalyzing the knockdowns of the corresponding genes in V. longisporum.102

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