Worldwide, Dickeya (formerly Erwinia chrysanthemi) is causing soft rot diseases on a large diversity of crops and ornamental plants. Strains affecting potato are mainly found in D. dadantii, D. dianthicola and D. zeae, which appear to have a marked geographical distribution. Furthermore, a few Dickeya isolates from potato are attributed to D. chrysanthemi and D. dieffenbachiae. In Europe, isola...

We investigated two alternative hypotheses for the origin of crop pathogen species: that human-mediated agricultural practices drove the divergence of many crop plant pathogen species or that coevolutionary processes in natural populations of the crops' ancestors drove divergence of pathogen species. We distinguished between these two hypotheses by constructing a robust multigene phylogeny and ...

Several strains of Ustilago maydis, a causal agent of corn smut disease, exhibit a ‘killer’ phenotype that is due to persistent infection by double-stranded RNA Totiviruses. These viruses produce potent killer proteins that are secreted by the host. This is a rare example of virus/host symbiosis in that these viruses are dependent upon host survival and, to that end, produce antifungal proteins...

The biotrophic fungus Ustilago maydis, the causal agent of corn smut disease, uses numerous small secreted effector proteins to suppress plant defence responses and reshape the host metabolism. However, the role of specific effectors remains poorly understood. Here, we describe the identification of ApB73 (Apathogenic in B73), an as yet uncharacterized protein essential for the successful colon...

The taxonomic positions of species of the Lactobacillus casei group have been evaluated by sequencing and phylogenetic analysis of a 277 bp recA gene fragment. High sequence similarity between strain ATCC 393T, currently designated as the type strain of L. casei, and the type strain of Lactobacillus zeae, LMG 17315T, has been established, while L. casei ATCC 334 and Lactobacillus paracasei NCDO...

The fungus Ustilago maydis represents one of the major threats to maize plants since it is responsible for corn smut disease, which generates considerable economical losses around world. Therefore, contributing a better understanding biochemistry defense mechanisms used by U. protect itself against harsh environments, such as synthesis melanin, could provide improved biological tools tackling p...

MAP kinases (mitogen-activated protein kinases) are activated by dual phosphorylation on specific threonine and specific tyrosine residues that are separated by a single residue, and the TXY activation motif is a hallmark of MAP kinases. In the fungus Ustilago maydis, which causes corn smut disease, the Crk1 protein, a kinase previously described to have roles in morphogenesis, carries a TXY mo...

Promoter sequences from the Aspergillus niger glucoamylase-encoding gene (glaA) were linked to the bacterial hygromycin (Hy) phosphotransferase-encoding gene (hph) and this chimeric marker was used to select Hy-resistant (HyR) Ustilago maydis transformants. This is an example of an Ascomycete promoter functioning in a Basidiomycete. HyR transformants varied with respect to copy number of integr...