Compliance with ethical standards: This study did not involve human participants and animals, and the plant of interest is not an endangered species. Polygalacturonase-inhibiting proteins (PGIPs) are leucine-rich repeat proteins that plants produce against polygalacturonase, a key virulence agent in pathogens. In this paper, we cloned and purified CkPGIP1, a gene product from Cynanchum komarovi...

The transmission of viral infections between plant and fungal hosts has been suspected to occur, based on phylogenetic and other findings, but has not been directly observed in nature. Here, we report the discovery of a natural infection of the phytopathogenic fungus Rhizoctonia solani by a plant virus, cucumber mosaic virus (CMV). The CMV-infected R. solani strain was obtained from a potato pl...

Rhizoctonia solani anastomosis group AG2-2 IIIB is a severe sugar beet and maize pathogen. It causes crown and root rot disease which le ads to y ield losses world-wide. The soil-borne pathogen is d ifficult to detec t and quantify by conventional methods. We developed a real-time PCR (qPCR) assay for the quantification of genomic DNA of Rhizoctonia solani AG2-2 IIIB based on the ITS region of ...

Sheath blight disease is caused by a necrotrophic fungal pathogen Rhizoctonia solani and it continues to be a challenge for sustainable rice cultivation. In this study, we adopted a multi-pronged approach to understand the intricacies of rice undergoing susceptible interactions with R. solani. Extensive anatomical alteration, chloroplast localized ROS, deformed chloroplast ultrastructure along ...

Phytophthora cinnamomi, a member of the Pythiacease, does not synthesize sterols. Small amounts of squalene, but no squalene epoxide or sterol, were isolated from the dried mycelium of this fungus after growth in sterol-free medium. The dried mycelium of Rhizoctonia solani, a sterol-synthesizing fungus grown under the same conditions, contained small amounts of squalene and squalene epoxide and...

Application of biochar, a pyrolyzed biomass from organic sources, to agricultural soils is considered a promising strategy to sustain soil fertility leading to increased plant productivity. It is also known that applications of biochar to soilless potting substrates and to soil increases resistance of plants against diseases, but also bear the potential to have inconsistent and contradictory re...