Fusarium oxysporum has been reported to be the most devastating pathogen of Crocus sativus L., a commercially significant crop that yields the saffron spice. However, most of the pathogen isolations have been done from the diseased tissue, mostly from rotten corms, but no study has been conducted on diseased saffron fields. To fill the knowledge gap, the current study was carried out with the intention of recording the diversity of cultivable fungus species from saffron fields and screening them for pathogenicity towards saffron. The three study locations in Jammu and Kashmir, Srinagar (Pampore), Kishtwar, and Ramban, yielded a total of 45 fungal isolates. The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) of rDNA was used for the molecular identification. ITS rDNA-based sequence analysis classified all the operational taxonomic units (OTUs) into two phyla—Ascomycota (88.88%) and Mucoromycota (11.11%). Moreover, Fusarium (57.77%), Geotrichum (17.77%), Mucor (11.11%), Aspergillus (4.44%), Trichoderma (4.44%), Galactomyces (2.22%), and Colletotrichum (2.22%) all had different total abundances at the genus level. It was discovered that the saffron fields in Srinagar have fewer varied fungal species than the other two selected sites. All of the fungal isolates isolated including Fusarium solani, Aspergillus flavus, Trichoderma harzianum, Fusarium neocosmosporiellum, and Mucor circinelloides were pathogenic according to the pathogenicity test; however, injury to the saffron plant was found to be a must. These fungi were pathogenic in addition to F. oxysporum, which is well documented as a major cause of saffron corm rot diseases in Srinagar, but in the present study, injury was a must for F. oxysporum as well. The percentage disease severity index for both saffron roots and corms varied for each fungal isolate.
Fusarium oxysporum causes corm rot in saffron (Crocus sativus L.), that is one of the most important fungal diseases impacting saffron yield globally. Despite the fact that the corm rot agent and its symptoms are widely known, little is known about the molecular basis of defense mechanism of saffron in response to Fusarium oxysporum infection. Therefore, the current study was initiated in order to identify differentially expressed genes in response to pathogen infection in saffron. The active participation of Mitogen Activated Kinase pathway (MAPK), Transcription factors (TFs), plant-hormone signalling, plant-pathogen interaction pathway and synthesis of PR proteins in defence of saffron against Fox R1 infection was revealed by Gene Ontology, KEGG pathway and MapMan analysis. In this study, the PR proteins had shown a robust antifungal activity. These findings revealed that the saffron has a powerful defense mechanism in the early stages of infection. In addition, fifty seven Fusarium oxysporum R1 genes linked to pathogenicity and virulence that expressed during the infection phase were also identified. Surprisingly, SIXgenes (secreted in the xylem) were not found in the current investigation, although these genes have been thoroughly described in other Fusarium oxysporum strains and are known to be one of the key virulence factors. Because saffron is a male sterile plant that can only be improved genetically by genome editing, this work will serve as a foundation for identifying genes that can be used to create saffron varieties resistant to Fox infection.
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