Abstract
The fungal genus Tilletia includes a large number of plant pathogens of Poaceae. Only a few of those cause bunt of wheat, but these species can lead to significant yield losses in crop production worldwide. Due to quarantine regulations and specific disease control using appropriate seed treatments for the different disease agents, it is of high importance to distinguish Tilletia caries and Tilletia laevis as causal agents of common bunt accurately from Tilletia controversa, the causal agent of the dwarf bunt. Several studies have shown that matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) is a useful tool to differentiate closely related fungal species. The aim of this study was to assess whether MALDI-TOF MS analysis is able to distinguish specimens of the three closely related pathogens T. caries, T. laevis, and T. controversa and whether it may constitute an alternative method to the morphology-based identification or germination tests. Spectral data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD030401. Spectra-based hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC) of the obtained mass spectra showed two main clusters. One cluster included specimens of T. controversa, whereas the second cluster comprised T. laevis and T. caries specimens. Even though main spectral profiles (MSPs) for species identification are missing, MALDI-TOF MS has proven to be a useful method for distinguishing between T. controversa and the two causal agents of common bunt, using direct analysis of teliospores, but was unable to separate T. caries and T. laevis species.Key points• MALDI-TOF MS was developed to classify Tilletia species causing bunt of wheat.• Best results were achieved when combining HCA and DAPC analysis.• The method resulted in an accuracy of 98.51% testing 67 Tilletia specimens.Graphical abstract
Highlights
More than 170 Tilletia species (Tilletiales, Exobasidiomycetes, Ustilaginomycotina) are described and distributed worldwide (Vánky 2012)
The causal agents of common bunt and dwarf bunt of wheat are identified based on the morphological characteristics of their teliospores such as reticulation of the spore surface, diameter and height of the muri, and presence or absence of hyaline, gelatinous sheaths (ISTA 1984; Vánky 2012)
Some conflicts remained in morphological identification of 15 species, which constituted a set of interesting test samples to examine the suitability of the developed MALDI-TOF MS method
Summary
More than 170 Tilletia species (Tilletiales, Exobasidiomycetes, Ustilaginomycotina) are described and distributed worldwide (Vánky 2012). All species parasitize on inflorescences or leaves of grasses (Poaceae). Species are highly diverse in terms of morphology and host specificity. The greater part of them has no economic impact, but a few Tilletia species infect economically important cereal crops causing severe yield losses or decreasing the capabilities for further processing due to the production of foul-smelling trimethylamine (Hanna et al 1932). Wheat is affected by four Tilletia species, whereas the causal agents of common bunt of wheat, Tilletia caries (DC) Tul. T. foetida (Wallr.) Liro)), as well as wheat
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