Cellular and substrate-specific interactions characterising some of the esca pathogens of grapevine
2011
Oliveira, João Daniel Condeço | Ferreira, Ricardo Boavida
Mestrado em Biologia funcional - Instituto Superior de Agronomia
Show more [+] Less [-]Esca is a grapevine trunk disease caused by one association of fungi. Phaeomoniella chlamydospora is presumably the first fungus to infect grapevine. Another pathogen which belongs to the fungal complex is Fomitiporia mediterranea, responsible for the final wood decay process. In this study Trametes versicolor was used as a control because it is capable of degrading the wood, and is not usually associated with esca disease. The experiments were done with wood from different plant species, namely Vitis vinifera, Prunus sp. and Ficus carica. The latter was used to investigate a possible antifungal activity. When subjected to anaerobic conditions, the three fungi do not present any growth. The fungi produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) when they interact in culture. The interaction between P. chlamydospora and T. versicolor was the most relevant. All fungi were able to degrade the wood of the different plant species analysed, as evaluated by microscopy and staining techniques. The wood was also used to prepare different culture media, based on wood-powder agar and wood-extract agar. For each case, different growth rates were obtained. The peripheral growth of the hyphae was followed in the different media and no alterations of the phenotype were found, except for the length of the hyphae
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