| Title |
Morphological Structure of Propagules and Electrophoretic Karyotype Analysis of False Smut Villosiclava virens in Rice |
| Author |
Rongtao Fu, Lei Ding, Jun Zhu, Ping Li, and Ai-ping Zheng* |
| Address |
Rice research Institute, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, P. R. China |
| Bibliography |
Journal of Microbiology, 50(2),263-269, 2012,
|
| DOI |
|
| Key Words |
false smut, propagulum, PFGE, Ustilaginoidea virens, XBZ medium |
| Abstract |
The target pathogen Villosiclava virens (teleomorph: claviceps
oryzae-sativae) was isolated from the infected rice, where it
caused false smut. In our study, the forming processes of the
chlamydospores, chlamydospore balls, conidiospores, and
secondary conidiospores during the asexual reproduction
were observed more precisely and in greater detail than
previous descriptions. The microstructure of the infected
rice kernel showed that the outer dense chlamydospores
piled around the false smut balls grown on XBZ medium;
moreover the sclerotia consisting of dense mycelium were
found. The different morphology was observed across the
different growing conditions. In addition, we observed the
nuclear numbers of both the conidiospores and hyphae using
4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) staining. Because
the fungus has small chromosomes and the numbers were
not previously known, we analyzed the electrophoretic karyotype
using a pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) technique.
The results showed that V. virens has at least 10 chromosomes
ranging in size from 0.6 kb to 6 Mb. The V. virens
genome size is estimated to be 23 Mb. Here, we report the
morphological characteristics of the fungus and the process
of asexual spores forming asexual propagules, along with
the first analyze the molecular karyotype of V. virens. These
results supply a foundation for further study of the pathogenicity
and biology of this devastating pathogen. |
