Survival, Persistence, and Infection Efficiency of Verticillium dahliae Passed Through the Digestive System of Sheep

Abstract

The present study was carried out to determine the survival, persistence, and infection efficiency of Verticillium dahliae passed through the digestive tract of sheep. Eggplant, turnip, tomato, and pepper plants were artificially inoculated with 32 V. dahliae isolates. At 33 days postinoculation, the disease incidence and severity for eggplant, turnip, tomato, and pepper plants were 99.6, 96.2, 62.9, and 18.0% and 80.1, 49.8, 19.8, and 7.8%, respectively. The infected plant material was used to feed four 1-year-old sheep. Polymerase chain reaction assays revealed the presence of V. dahliae DNA in fecal samples received from animals' rectum on days 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, whereas the pathogen DNA was not detected on 0, 6, and 7 days after feeding. Pathogenicity tests were conducted by transplanting eggplant plants into soil substrate amended with 20% decomposed manure, collected from the four animals fed with the infested forage. At 52 days after transplanting, manure-treated plants exhibited Verticillium wilt symptoms whereas, 2 months later, disease incidence, disease severity, and percentage of positive V. dahliae isolations from stem tissues were 58.3, 30.7, and 48.3%, respectively. Symptoms or positive isolations were not observed in control plants (transplanted in 100% soil substrate). This is the first report of the active role of V. dahliae passed through the digestive system of sheep as effective inoculum for host plants, in relation to the span persistence and transmission via the sheep carrier.

Hex1, the Major Component of Woronin Bodies, is Required for Normal Development, Pathogenicity and Stress Response in the Plant Pathogenic FungusVerticillium dahliae

“…We report here for V. dahliae one of the most pronounced roles of Hex1 in fungal pathogenicity. Deletion of hex1 diminished virulence of V. dahliae on eggplant, a very susceptible host of this pathogen [38]. Consistently with this drastically reduced disease severity by 84.7% on average, presence of the fungus in the xylem of infected plants was also reduced by 49.4%.…”

“…Pathogenicity bioassays on eggplant (cv. Black Beauty), which is highly susceptible to V. dahliae [38], were performed to investigate the possible involvement of Hex1 in pathogenicity and virulence of the fungus. Eggplant seedlings were inoculated with the wild-type, Δ hex1 and hex1-c strains, and their disease severity was assessed 45 days after inoculation.…”

“…The presence of the applied V. dahliae strain in plant tissues was assessed by fungal re-isolation to verify systemic infection at 29 d.p.i., according to [38]. In particular, 9 plant stems per treatment were randomly selected and 3 xylem chips from different sites along the stem (base, middle and upper part) were transferred onto acidified PDA medium after the removal of the phloem.…”

Investigation of interactions between Meloidogyne javanica and three soil‐borne fungi against susceptible plant hosts

“…Knossos) and melon (hybrid Global F1) at the two‐true‐leaf stage. ‘Black Beauty’ is susceptible to V. dahliae (Markakis et al., 2014); while ‘Knossos’ and ‘Global F1’ are susceptible to F.o.r.c . and M. cannonballus , respectively (Markakis et al., 2018; Vakalounakis et al., 2005).…”

“…Three highly virulent fungal isolates originated from symptomatic plants were used: V. dahliae 999‐1 from eggplant ( Solanum melongena L.) (Markakis et al., 2014), F.o.r.c . Afu‐68A from cucumber (Vakalounakis et al., 2005) and M. cannonballus PEP1 from melon (Markakis et al., 2018).…”