Verticilium

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is an important vegetable crop worldwide. Often times, its production is hindered by fungal diseases. Important fungal diseases limiting tomato production are late blight, caused by Phytophthora infestans, early blight, caused by Alternaria solanii, and septoria leaf spot, caused by Septoria lycopersici, fusarium wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporium fsp. oxysporium, and verticilium wilt caused by Verticilium dahlea. The Phytophthora infestans is the same fungus that caused the devastating loss of potato in Europe in 1845...

High yielding transformed callus culture of W. somnifera was established by infecting hypocotyls with Agrobacterium tumefaciens MTCC-2250. Maximum withaferin A content of 0.0875 mg/g dry cell weight and transformation efficiency of 80% were obtained. Confirmation of transformation was done on the basis of the presence of the ags gene by using polymerase chain reaction. Various abiotic elicitors (arachidonic acid, methyl jasmonate, calcium chloride, and copper sulfate) and biotic elicitors (cell extracts and culture filtrates of Alternia alternata, Fusarium solani, and Verticilium dahaliae) were tested at different concentrations to enhance withaferin A production in suspension culture of transformed cells...

In order to screen for new microbial D-amino acid oxidase activities a selective and sensitive peroxidase/o-dianisidine assay, detecting the formation of hydrogen peroxide was developed. Catalase, which coexists with oxidases in the peroxisomes or the microsomes and, which competes with peroxidase for hydrogen peroxide, was completely inhibited by o-dianisidine up to a catalase activity of 500 nkat ml(-)(1). Thus, using the peroxidase/o-dianisidine assay and employing crude extracts of microorganisms in a microplate reader, a detection sensitivity for oxidase activity of 0...

Forty-one fungal isolates (one isolate per species) representing common plant pathogens and food crop contaminants were grown on sterile, polished rice and assayed for mutagenic activity in the Salmonella typhimurium-microsome system. Initially, single doses of aqueous and chloroform extracts of the moldy rice were assayed against the TA100 tester strain by incorporating extracts into the growth medium and by applying small quantities on disks placed on the agar surface. Suspected activity was examined further by analysis of several doses in the plate incorporation assay...