ScAnalyzer: an image processing tool to monitor plant disease symptoms and pathogen spread in Arabidopsis thaliana leaves.

Background: Plants are known to be infected by a wide range of pathogenic microbes. To study plant diseases caused by microbes, it is imperative to be able to monitor disease symptoms and microbial colonization in a quantitative and objective manner. In contrast to more traditional measures that use manual assignments of disease categories, image processing provides a more accurate and objective quantification of plant disease symptoms.

Hydathode immunity protects the Arabidopsis leaf vasculature against colonization by bacterial pathogens.

Plants prevent disease by passively and actively protecting potential entry routes against invading microbes. For example, the plant immune system actively guards roots, wounds, and stomata. How plants prevent vascular disease upon bacterial entry via guttation fluids excreted from specialized glands at the leaf margin remains largely unknown.

The amino acid permease (AAP) genes CsAAP2A and SlAAP5A/B are required for oomycete susceptibility in cucumber and tomato.

Cucurbit downy mildew (DM), caused by the obligate biotroph Pseudoperonospora cubensis, is a destructive disease in cucumber. A valuable source of DM resistance is the Indian cucumber accession PI 197088, which harbours several quantitative trait loci (QTLs) contributing to quantitatively inherited DM resistance. With a combination of fine-mapping and transcriptomics, we identified Amino Acid Permease 2A (CsAAP2A) as a candidate gene for QTL DM4.

Analysis of QTL DM4.1 for Downy Mildew Resistance in Cucumber Reveals Multiple subQTL: A Novel as Candidate Gene for the Most Important subQTL.

One of the biggest problems in cucumber cultivation is cucurbit downy mildew (DM), caused by the obligate biotroph . Whereas DM in cucumber was previously efficiently controlled by the gene from Indian cucumber accession PI 197087, this resistance was broken by new DM strains, prompting the search for novel sources of resistance. A promising source of resistance is the wild cucumber accession PI 197088.

Solanaceous exocyst subunits are involved in immunity to diverse plant pathogens.

The exocyst, a multiprotein complex consisting of eight subunits, plays an essential role in many biological processes by mediating secretion of post-Golgi-derived vesicles towards the plasma membrane. In recent years, roles for plant exocyst subunits in pathogen defence have been uncovered, largely based on studies in the model plant Arabidopsis. Only a few studies have been undertaken to assign the role of exocyst subunits in plant defence in other plants species, including crops.

Functional characterization of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) Clade V MLO genes.

Background: Powdery mildew (PM) causing fungi are well-known pathogens, infecting over 10.000 plant species, including the economically important crop cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.).

A transposable element insertion in the susceptibility gene CsaMLO8 results in hypocotyl resistance to powdery mildew in cucumber.

Background: Powdery mildew (PM) is an important disease of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.). CsaMLO8 was previously identified as a candidate susceptibility gene for PM in cucumber, for two reasons: 1) This gene clusters phylogenetically in clade V, which has previously been shown to harbour all known MLO-like susceptibility genes for PM identified in dicot species; 2) This gene co-localizes with a QTL on chromosome 5 for hypocotyl-specific resistance to PM.