A new Curvularia lunata variety discovered in Huanghuaihai Region in China

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the dominant pathogens of Curvularia leaf spot and their pathogenicity variation in Huanghuaihai Region of China in recent years. In 2013 and 2016–2017, the occurrences of Curvularia leaf spots on maize were investigated in fields located in Henan, Hebei, Shandong, and Anhui provinces, and 292 fungi were isolated from diseased leaves. These fungal isolates were subjected to morphological identification, and 232 isolates were found to have about 70% uncurved conidia and were identified as Curvularia lunata var. Most of the conidia of 2 representative isolates, namely, HNWB-131 and HNWB-185, were oblong with parallel septations and were distinctly different from a reference isolate CX-3. For further determination, the internal transcribed spacer (ITS), glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPDH), the large subunit (LSU), and translation elongation factor 1-alpha (EF1-α) sequences of HNWB-131, HNWB-185, and CX-3 were amplified and sequenced. The results of sequence analysis showed that the 4 gene sequences from the 3 isolates had a similarity of more than 99% to C. lunata. Based on the sequences of ITS and the combined data of the 4 genes, neighbor-joining trees were constructed for phylogenetic analysis. The results indicated that these 3 isolates were clustered together with C. lunata. The expression of Clg2p and ClUrase genes in mycelia and conidia was significantly (P<0.05) higher in CX-3 than in HNWB-131 and HNWB-185. This study found that the dominant pathogen of Curvularia leaf spot was a new variety of C. lunata with morphological variations in Huanghuaihai Region from 2013 to 2017. The pathogenicity of the C. lunata var. was not significantly enhanced, and the expression of Clg2p and ClUrase genes of C. lunata var. was decreased.