The quantification of southern corn leaf blight disease using deep UV fluorescence spectroscopy and autoencoder anomaly detection techniques.

Southern leaf blight (SLB) is a foliar disease caused by the fungus Cochliobolus heterostrophus infecting maize plants in humid, warm weather conditions. SLB causes production losses to corn producers in different regions of the world such as Latin America, Europe, India, and Africa. In this paper, we demonstrate a non-destructive method to quantify the signs of fungal infection in SLB-infected corn plants using a deep UV (DUV) fluorescence spectrometer, with a 248.

The association between Dioscorea sansibarensis and Orrella dioscoreae as a model for hereditary leaf symbiosis.

Hereditary, or vertically-transmitted, symbioses affect a large number of animal species and some plants. The precise mechanisms underlying transmission of functions of these associations are often difficult to describe, due to the difficulty in separating the symbiotic partners. This is especially the case for plant-bacteria hereditary symbioses, which lack experimentally tractable model systems.

Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation of Nigrospora sp. isolated from switchgrass leaves and antagonistic toward plant pathogens.

Nigrospora is a diverse genus of fungi colonizing plants through endophytic, pathogenic, or saprobic interactions. Endophytic isolates can improve growth and development of host plants, as well as their resistance to microbial pathogens, but exactly how they do so remains poorly understood. Developing a reliable transformation method is crucial to investigate these mechanisms, in particular to identify pivotal genes for specific functions that correlate with specific traits.

Secrets of the fungus-specific potassium channel TOK family.

Several families of potassium (K) channels are found in membranes of all eukaryotes, underlining the importance of K uptake and redistribution within and between cells and organs. Among them, TOK (tandem-pore outward-rectifying K) channels consist of eight transmembrane domains and two pore domains per subunit organized in dimers. These channels were originally studied in yeast, but recent identifications and characterizations in filamentous fungi shed new light on this fungus-specific K channel family.

New insights into HcPTR2A and HcPTR2B, two high-affinity peptide transporters from the ectomycorrhizal model fungus Hebeloma cylindrosporum.

While plants mainly rely on the use of inorganic nitrogen sources like ammonium and nitrate, soil-borne microorganisms like the ectomycorrhizal fungus Hebeloma cylindrosporum can also take up soil organic N in the form of amino acids and peptides that they use as nitrogen and carbon sources. Following the previous identification and functional expression in yeast of two PTR-like peptide transporters, the present study details the functions and substrates of HcPTR2A and HcPTR2B by analysing their transport kinetics in Xenopus laevis oocytes. While both transporters mediated high-affinity di- and tripeptide transport, HcPTR2A also showed low-affinity transport of several amino acids-mostly hydrophobic ones with large side chains.

Plant potassium nutrition in ectomycorrhizal symbiosis: properties and roles of the three fungal TOK potassium channels in Hebeloma cylindrosporum.

Ectomycorrhizal fungi play an essential role in the ecology of boreal and temperate forests through the improvement of tree mineral nutrition. Potassium (K ) is an essential nutrient for plants and is needed in high amounts. We recently demonstrated that the ectomycorrhizal fungus Hebeloma cylindrosporum improves the K nutrition of Pinus pinaster under shortage conditions.