Isolation and identification of Sclerotinia stem rot causal pathogen in Arabidopsis thaliana.
A new stem rot disease is found to occur naturally on Arabidopsis plants in greenhouses of Fuzhou, China. In order to identify its pathogen, we conducted a series of fungal isolation and purification, plant reinoculation, and ascus and ascospore induction from the sclerotia. The isolate caused typical water-soaked lesions after reinoculation and produced sclerotia both on Arabidopsis plants and culture medium plates, and the sclerotia could be induced to produce discal apothecia and 8 binucleate ascospores per ascus. These disease symptom and fungal morphology data revealed that the fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary was the pathogen for Arabidopsis stem rot. To confirm this, we further amplified its large subunit ribosomal DNA (LSU rDNA) by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and compared the sequence with the known LSU rDNA sequences in GenBank. The results show that the sequence shares the highest identities with the LSU rDNAs of different S. sclerotiorum strains. Taking all these data together, we concluded that the fungus that caused the Arabidopsis stem rot is S. sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary. This is the first report that Arabidopsis is naturally infected by S. sclerotiorum.
Wang
Ai-Rong
AR
Computer and Information College, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China.
Lin
Wen-Wei
WW
Chen
Xiao-Ting
XT
Lu
Guo-Dong
GD
Zhou
Jie
J
Wang
Zong-Hua
ZH
D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000382:microbiology; D001203:Ascomycota / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D001483:Base Sequence; D002681:China; D004271:DNA, Fungal / Q000235:genetics; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000382:microbiology*; D018547:Plant Stems / Q000382:microbiology
D004271:DNA, Fungal; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal