Project description:This experiment was designed to study the interactions between Medicago truncatula and the charcoal rot pathogen Macrophomina phaeolina. Two-week-old plants grown in Magenta boxes supplied with 1/2 MS salt and 1% sucrose were inoculated with M. phaseolina covered wheat seeds, and roots were harvested at 24, 36 and 48 hours after inoculation. Control plants were mock inoculated with a sterile wheat seed, and roots were harvest 24 hours later. Pooled RNAs were used in the array experiment using Affymetrix GeneChip(r) Medicago Genome Array.
Project description:Macrophomina phaseolina is a global devastating necrotrophic fungal pathogen. It causes charcoal rot disease in more than 500 host plants. It is essential to understand the host microbe interaction and the diseases pathogenesis which can ensure global agricultural crop production and security. An array of virulence factors of M. phaseolina were identified which were found to be involved in pathogenesis of other plant pathogenic fungi also. In conclusion the present study has provided a better understanding of how necrotrophic fungi M. phaseolina modulates host plant defensive processes.
Project description:The present study was carried out to evaluate the antagonistic efficacy of Aspergillus versicolor against the soil and seed inhibiting destructive plant pathogen Macrophomina phaseolina. The tested antagonist was confirmed by rDNA sequencing of ITS and β-tubulin genes with respective accession numbers MN719083 and MN736397. In dual culture bioassays, A. versicolor showed potent antagonist activity and reduced the pathogen's growth by 60% over control. To understand the mechanism of antagonistic fungus, DNA of the pathogenic fungus was incubated in secondary metabolites produced by the A. versicolor for 24 and 48 h. After 48 h, metabolites of A. versicolor fully degraded the DNA of M. phaseolina. Moreover, for the identification of bioactive compounds, the chloroform and ethyl acetate fractions of A. versicolor culture filtrates were subjected to GC-MS analysis. A total of 10 compounds were identified in each of the two fractions. Among these, chondrillasterol (37.43%) followed by 1,2-benzedicarboxylic acid, diisooctyl ester (25.93%), decane (16.63%), 9,12-octadecadienoic acid (Z,Z)- (13.32%), stigmasterol (11.16%), undecane (10.93%), cis-1-chloro-9-octadecene (8.66%), benzene, 1,3,5-trimethyl (8.46%), and hexadecanoic acid, 2-hydroxy-1-(hydroxymethyl) ethyl ester (8.13%) were the major compounds. Some of the identified compounds are known to possess strong antifungal, antibacterial, nematicidal, and antioxidant properties. The present study concludes that A. versicolor is an effective antagonist against M. phaseolina.
Project description:Macrophomina phaseolina, a soil borne pathogen with a wide host range, causes the charcoal rot in soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr). In Argentina, soybean is the most important crop as far as sowing surface cultivation concerns, and for this reason it is important to assess integrated disease management strategies in order to minimize the incidence of this disease and the consequent loss of performance culture. Previous studies have demonstrated the protective effect that arbuscular mycorrhizal can promote on their hosts against various pathogens invasion, especially against soil borne fungi. Therefore, the goal of this study was to analyze the phenomenon of mycorrhizae mediated protection by characterizing transcriptional changes using cDNA microarrays as a tool. The objective of the present study was to investigate, under strict in vitro culture conditions, the global transcriptional change in the roots of pre-mycorrhized soybean plantlets challenged by M. phaseolina as compared to non-mycorrhizal soybean plantlets. The MapMan software was used to distinguish transcriptional change under these conditions, with special emphasis on plant defence response.
Project description:A 70 year old female patient presented with complaints of pain, watering and swelling in the right eye. She gave a history of fall, as she was walking in the paddy field of her farm. Ophthalmological and Microbiological investigation revealed a fungal keratitis with an unusual fungus Macrophomina phaseolina which is primarily a plant pathogen, with a potential to cause human infections especially in immuno-compromised patients. The patient responded well to the antifungal treatment with Oral Voriconazole with absence of recurrence and dissemination.
Project description:Macrophomina phaseolina is one of the deadliest necrotrophic fungal pathogens that infect more than 500 plant species including major food, fiber, and oil crops all throughout the globe. It secretes a cocktail of ligninolytic enzymes along with other hydrolytic enzymes for degrading the woody lignocellulosic plant cell wall and penetrating into the host tissue. Among them, lignin peroxidase has been reported only in Phanerochaete chrysosporium so far. But interestingly, a recent study has revealed a second occurrence of lignin peroxidase in M. phaseolina. However, lignin peroxidases are of much significance biotechnologically because of their potential applications in bio-remedial waste treatment and in catalyzing difficult chemical transformations. Besides, this enzyme also possesses agricultural and environmental importance on account of their role in lignin biodegradation. In the present work, different properties of the lignin peroxidase of M. phaseolina along with predicting the 3-D structure and its active sites were investigated by the use of various computational tools. The data from this study will pave the way for more detailed exploration of this enzyme in wet lab and thereby facilitating the strategies to be designed against such deadly weapons of Macrophomina phaseolina. Furthermore, the insight of such a ligninolytic enzyme will contribute to the assessment of its potentiality as a bioremediation tool.
Project description:Macrophomina phaseolina (Mp) is a soil-borne pathogenic fungus known to infect more than 500 plants species including important crops. Here we report the use of a novel agar plate-based pathosystem using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) to study plant defense reponses to Mp, specifically a comparison between wild type Col-0 and double mutant ein2/jar1 roots with and without Mp infection, at two time points, by RNA-seq.