Genetic Constitution and Pathogenicity of Lolium Isolates of Magnaporthe oryzae in Comparison with Host Species-Specific Pathotypes of the Blast Fungus.

ABSTRACT Fungal isolates from gray leaf spot on perennial ryegrass (prg isolates) were characterized by DNA analyses, mating tests, and pathogenicity assays. All of the prg isolates were interfertile with Triticum isolates and clustered into the crop isolate group (CC group) on a dendrogram constructed from rDNA-internal transcribed spacer 2 sequences. Since the CC group corresponded to a newly proposed species, Magnaporthe oryzae, all of the prg isolates were designated M.

Speciation in Pyricularia inferred from multilocus phylogenetic analysis.

Pyricularia isolates from various host plants were subjected to a multilocus phylogenetic analysis based on rDNA-ITS, actin, beta-tubulin, and calmodulin loci. A combined gene tree resolved seven groups with 100% BS support, suggesting that they are monophyletic groups supported concordantly by all four loci. By incorporating biological and morphological species criteria, each of the seven groups was considered to be a current species.

Evolution of an avirulence gene, AVR1-CO39, concomitant with the evolution and differentiation of Magnaporthe oryzae.

The significance of AVR1-CO39, an avirulence gene of the blast fungus corresponding to Pi-CO39(t) in rice cultivars, during the evolution and differentiation of the blast fungus was evaluated by studying its function and distribution in Pyricularia spp. When the presence or absence of AVR1-CO39 was plotted on a dendrogram constructed from ribosomal DNA sequences, a perfect parallelism was observed between its distribution and the phylogeny of Pyricularia isolates. AVR1-CO39 homologs were exclusively present in one species, Pyricularia oryzae, suggesting that AVR1-CO39 appeared during the early stage of evolution of P.