Abstract
Sugarcane smut caused by the basidiomycetes fungus Sporisorium scitamineum is a devastating disease for the sugarcane industry worldwide. As the initial step, the smut teliospores germinate on sugarcane buds, and subsequently, the mycelium infects the bud tissues. However, chemical signals that induce spore germination are still unknown. By comparison of the behavior of the teliospores on the buds of both resistant and susceptible varieties, we found that spore germination rates were significantly lower on the buds of resistant cultivars ZZ1, ZZ6, and ZZ9 than on the susceptible varieties GT42 and ROC22. It was found that the levels of hexacosanol and octacosanol were higher on the buds of smut-susceptible varieties than on the smut-resistant varieties. These observations were extended to the smut-resistant and smut-susceptible sub-genetic populations derived from the cross of ROC25 and YZ89-7. In artificial surface assays, we found that hexacosanol and octacosanol promoted smut teliospore germination. Transcriptome analysis of smut teliospores under the induction by octacosanol revealed that genes in the MAPK signaling pathway and fatty acid metabolism were significantly differentially expressed. Overall, our results provide evidence that alkanol plays important roles in smut teliospore germination and thus could be used as a potential marker for smut resistance in sugarcane breeding programs.
Highlights
Sugarcane is one of the most important crops worldwide for sugar production and a myriad of useful by-products, such as food, fiber, wax, and biofuel [1]
Smut teliospores on sugarcane buds were visually observed, and their germination rates were calculated to determine the differences in smut teliospore germination in smutresistant and smut-susceptible varieties
The content of alkanes and fatty acids was not significantly different. These results suggest that alkanol and alkanal may play an important role in smut teliospore germination
Summary
Sugarcane is one of the most important crops worldwide for sugar production and a myriad of useful by-products, such as food, fiber, wax, and biofuel [1]. This crop often suffers from sugarcane smut, caused by Sporisorium scitamineum, leading to a serious loss of sugarcane yield. Chemical control of smut is generally ineffective, while breeding smut-resistant sugarcane varieties has proven to be an efficient and sustainable method of controlling smut [2]. Breeding smut-resistant varieties is time consuming due to the lack of reliable and efficient genetic markers to screen for smut resistance. There is an urgent need to develop a marker for such effective genetic screening
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