Abstract

Monosporascus cannonballus is a soilborne fungal pathogen that causes vine-decline of muskmelon which re- sults in reduced yield in many melon growing areas around the world. M. cannonballus isolates were collected from dif- ferent provinces in Spain and experiments conducted to determine pigmentation, perithecial formation, and the presence of cellular dsRNA. Thirty-one isolates were grouped based on dsRNA fragment sizes using cluster analysis and Euclidean distances. Three distinct dsRNA groupings were observed. Group 2 isolates containing 2, 3, and 3.5 kb dsRNA appeared to exhibit a decrease in perithecia production compared to the other groups. Group 1 isolates exhibited yellow pigmenta- tion only, while Group 3 isolates expressed grey (wild-type) and yellow (degenerate) pigmentation. Isolates that did not contain dsRNA (Group 4) exhibited wild-type pigmentation. Down-regulation and variation in phenotype are hypothe- sized to be due to dsRNA/iRNA interactions with the fungal transcription mechanisms. Future research will focus on elu- cidating the mechanisms of regulation by the dsRNA of M. cannonballus.

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