At first glance, diatoms, malaria parasites, and fungus-like plant pathogens called oomycetes look wildly different. But these organisms all have something in common: they belong to a group called the Chromalveolata that contains genes from algae. This diversity of lifestyles within a single group presents an opportunity to learn how the various strategies evolved. For example, oomycetes includ...

during an investigation on cladosporium species associated with numerous substrates of various localities in iran during 2011-13, eight species including c. delicatulum, c. echinulatum, c. exile, c. macrocarpum, c. neriicola, c. pannosum, c. scabrellum and c. uredinicola were identified based on the morphological characters. all these species are new records for the iranian mycobiota, except fo...

Resistance to biotrophic pathogens is largely dependent on the hormone salicylic acid (SA) while jasmonic acid (JA) regulates resistance against necrotrophs. JA negatively regulates SA and is, in itself, negatively regulated by SA. A key component of the JA signal transduction pathway is its receptor, the COI1 gene. Mutations in this gene can affect all the JA phenotypes, whereas mutations in o...

Pneumocystis jirovecii is a fungal parasite that colonizes specifically humans and turns into an opportunistic pathogen in immunodeficient individuals. The fungus is able to reproduce extracellularly in host lungs without eliciting massive cellular death. The molecular mechanisms that govern this process are poorly understood, in part because of the lack of an in vitro culture system for Pneumo...

SUMMARY Fungal plant pathologists have for many decades attempted to classify pathogens into groups called necrotrophs, biotrophs and, more recently, hemibiotrophs. Although these terms are well known and frequently used, disagreements about which pathogens fall into which classes, as well as the precise definition of these terms, has conspired to limit their usefulness. Dogmas concerning the p...

The common powdery mildew plant diseases are caused by ascomycete fungi of the order Erysiphales. Their characteristic life style as obligate biotrophs renders functional analyses in these species challenging, mainly because of experimental constraints to genetic manipulation. Global large-scale ("-omics") approaches are thus particularly valuable and insightful for the characterisation of the ...

Plants use an array of secondary metabolites to defend themselves against harmful organisms and to attract others that are beneficial. However, the attraction of beneficial organisms could also lead to abuse by malevolent organisms. An exciting example of such abuse is the relationship between plants, beneficial mutualistic arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and harmful parasitic plants. Signalling m...

1 Introduction 2 Advantages of using M. truncatula to study resistance to fungal necrotrophs 3 Fungal pathogens of M. truncatula 4 New pathogens and isolate validation 5 References 1 Introduction Fungal diseases in plants are almost exclusively members of the phylum Ascomycota and subphylum Pezizomycotina. All common crop plants are susceptible to fungal disease of one kind or another. Spore pr...