Journal
JOURNAL OF GENERAL PLANT PATHOLOGY
Volume 78, Issue 1, Pages 30-38Publisher
SPRINGER TOKYO
DOI: 10.1007/s10327-011-0356-4
Keywords
Alternaria alternata tomato pathotype; Alternaria arborescens; Melanin; Polyketide biosynthetic gene; UV tolerance
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Funding
- Japanese Society for Promotion of Sciences [19108001, 23248007, 23380025]
- Global COE, MEXT, Japan
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [23380025, 19108001, 23658041, 23248007, 22405018] Funding Source: KAKEN
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The tomato pathotype of Alternaria alternata (A. arborescens) produces the dark brown to black pigment melanin, which accumulates in the cell walls of hyphae and conidia. Melanin has been implicated as a pathogenicity factor in some phytopathogenic fungi. Here, two genes of the tomato pathotype for melanin biosynthesis, ALM1 and BRM2-1, which encode a polyketide synthetase and a 1,3,8-trihydroxynaphthalene (THN) reductase, respectively, have been cloned and disrupted in the pathogen. The gene-disrupted mutants, alm1 and brm2-1, had albino and brown phenotypes, respectively. The wild-type and the mutants caused the same necrotic lesions on the leaves after inoculation with spores. These results suggest that melanin is unlikely to play a direct role in pathogenicity in the tomato pathotype A. alternata. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that the conidia of both mutants have much smoother surfaces in comparison to the wild-type. The conidia of those mutants were more sensitive to UV light than those of the wild-type, demonstrating that melanin confers UV tolerance.
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