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Mutations in VMK1, a mitogen-activated protein kinase gene, affect microsclerotia formation and pathogenicity in Verticillium dahliae

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Abstract

Verticillium dahliae is an important soil-borne fungal pathogen that causes vascular wilt diseases in a large variety of important crop plants. Due to its persistence in the soil, control of Verticillium wilt relies heavily on soil fumigation. The global ban on methyl bromide, a highly effective soil fumigant, poses an urgent need to develop alternative control measures against Verticillium wilt; and these might be more forthcoming with a better understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms that underpin the pathogenicity of V. dahliae. In this study, we assessed the role in growth, development, and pathogenicity of VMK1, a gene encoding a mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase (hence, Verticillium MAP Kinase 1). Disruption of VMK1 via Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation, in two V. dahliae isolates, one from lettuce and the other from tomato, resulted in severely reduced virulence in diverse host plants, suggesting that VMK1 is essential for pathogenicity and that the MAP kinase-mediated signaling pathway has a conserved role in fungal pathogenicity. The vmk1 mutants also exhibited reduced conidiation and microsclerotia formation, suggesting that the gene is important for multiple cellular processes.

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Acknowledgements

Ths research was funded, in part, by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant to K.F.D. K.F.D. thanks A. Molnar (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) for graphics support. K.V.S. wishes to thank the California Lettuce Advisory Board and the California Department of Agriculture for funding portions of the research reported here.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Pathology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Payungsak Rauyaree, Manuel D. Ospina-Giraldo & Seogchan Kang

  2. Department of Plant Pathology, c/o USDA Station, University of California–Davis, Salinas, CA, 93905, USA

    Ravindra G. Bhat & Krishna V. Subbarao

  3. Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, London, N5V 4T3, Canada

    Sandra J. Grant & Katherine F. Dobinson

Authors
  1. Payungsak Rauyaree
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  2. Manuel D. Ospina-Giraldo
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  3. Seogchan Kang
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  4. Ravindra G. Bhat
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  5. Krishna V. Subbarao
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  6. Sandra J. Grant
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  7. Katherine F. Dobinson
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Seogchan Kang.

Additional information

Communicated by J. Heitman

P.R. and R.G.B. equally contributed to the work

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Rauyaree, P., Ospina-Giraldo, M.D., Kang, S. et al. Mutations in VMK1, a mitogen-activated protein kinase gene, affect microsclerotia formation and pathogenicity in Verticillium dahliae . Curr Genet 48, 109–116 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-005-0586-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-005-0586-0

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