Molecular Identification of Mating Type Genes in Asexually Reproducing Fusarium Oxysporum and F. Culmorum

Abstract

Sexually (homothallic and heterothallic) and asexually reproducing species belong to the Fusarium genus. So far, there is no known sexual stage of the F. oxysporum Schlechtend.: Fr. and F. culmorum (W.G. Smith) Sacc. Knowing the reproduction mode is important for the design of successful control strategies, since they are different for clonally and sexually reproducing organisms. In examined sets of asexual F. oxysporum and F. culmorum isolates, the DNA sequences of mating type genes (idiomorphs MAT-1 and MAT-2) were identified. MAT-1 sequence was detected for 33 and 40% of F. oxysporum and F. culmorum isolates, respectively. For the remaining isolates a sequence specific for MAT-2 was amplified.

Frequency and genetic variability of Fusarium oxysporum mating types

“…These results agree with previous reports where it has been found that mating type genes are highly divergent between species (Wik, Karlsson, & Johannesson, 2008;Arie, Christiansen, Yoder, & Turgeon, 1997) and can be strongly conserved within species (Turgeon, 1998). Moreover, intraspecific variability is common in F. oxysporum despite their sexual form is unknown (Irzykowska & Kosiada, 2011;O'Donnell, Ward, Geiser, Kistler, & Aoki, 2004). Changes in non-coding regions of MAT genes in Fusarium species, namely F. oxysporum and F. nygamai were greater than in the coding regions.…”

“…No isolate showed both idiomorphs, which is a distinctive feature of the heterothallic species. Similar results were reported for several species from the genus Fusarium (Ma, et al, 2013;Irzykowska & Kosiada, 2011;Fourie, Steenkamp, Gordon, & Viljoen, 2009;Kawabe, et al, 2005). For the species F. verticillioides and F. thapsinum, which are known to be heterothallic (Martin, Wingfield, Wingfield, & Steenkamp, 2011), only the presence of the MAT1-1 idiomorph was detected, probably due to the limited number of isolates studied, i.e.…”

“…ciceris. Irzykowska & Kosiada (2011) found that from a total of 30 isolates of F. oxysporum, 33% contained MAT1-1 and 77% contained MAT1-2. While, Kawabe, et al (2005) found that 76.7% contained MAT1-1 and 23.3% contained MAT1-2, from a total of 30 isolates of F. oxysporum f. sp.…”

Association of mating-type with mycelium growth rate and genetic variability of Fusarium culmorum

“…The PCRs were carried out using a Taq PCR Core Kit (QIAGEN, Inc., Hilden, Germany) as described earlier [2].…”

“…Fusarium culmorum (W. G. Smith) Sacc. is a widespread and destructive pathogen causing brown root and foot rot in wheat, barley and rye [1,2]. The disease causes very high yield losses worldwide [3] Fusarium root rot affects the root and crown functions, resulting in a loss of stand, reduced yield and lower grain quality.…”