Abstract
The Zizania latifolia Griseb. Turcz. ex Stapf., a perennial wetland wild rice species get infected by a basidiomycetous fungus Ustilago esculenta Henn that produces gall. Here we report the morphogenesis behaviour of this plant during gall transformation. The identity of Z. latifolia and U. esculenta were confirmed by comparing microsatellite and Internal Transcribed Spacer region of nuclear ribosomal DNA sequence with the public database. U. esculenta infection transforms the Z. latifolia into two distinct morphotypes such as gall forming and non-gall forming. The non-gall bearing morphotype exhibited pinkish microporous lamellar discs (15-20 numbers) filled with mycelia in the internodal spaces. Whereas the gall bearing morphotype fuses 3-4 nodes into compact spindle shaped hypertrophic tissue measuring 2.5 cm diameter x 8-10 cm length tapering at the tip end where dark brown coloured teliospores are deposited in linear sori. In vitro culture of lamellar discs and teliospores in Potato Sucrose Agar medium initially develops white colony 2.6- 4.0 cm diameter later turned into yellowish brown after 7 -10 days and subsequent sporulation within 8-12 days. Spherical sporangium of 28 µm diameter developed on long sporangiophore 7 µm diameter filled with large number of spores 1-1.5 µm in diameters. The unsuccessful sporulation of Ustilago even after infection failed to develop gall in the host plants behave normal life cycle and are not consumed. The spore along with hypertrophic soft tissue is consumed as vegetable in the oriental countries. Key words: Manchurian wild rice, teliospore, microsatellite.
Highlights
Manchurian wild rice or water bamboo (Zizania latifolia Griseb, Turcz. ex Stapf.) grows luxuriantly in wetland
Two unique strains of U. esculenta such as sporidial (T) and mycelial (M-T) strains are reported in Z. latifolia (Yang et al, 2014)
This paper investigates the authenticity of Z. latifolia and its pathogen U. esculenta found in Loktak Lake of Manipur, through microsatellite sequence alignment for Z. latifolia and ITS1-4 sequence alignment for U. esculenta and illustrates the features pertaining to gall bearing and non-gall bearing
Summary
Manchurian wild rice or water bamboo (Zizania latifolia Griseb, Turcz. ex Stapf.) grows luxuriantly in wetland. The grains contains high protein, carbohydrate and low anti-nutritional components such as cyanogenic glycosides, phytate, oxalate, saponin and tannin makes it more nutritious than any other rice and safe as human food (Umar et al, 2013), grains are used as food and rhizomes as diuretics and as medicines for anaemia, heart disease and liver disease (Stapf, 1909) and preventing obesity and liver lipotoxicity (Han et al, 2012) and the gall due to presence of tricin derivatives for allergy and inflammation treatment (Lee et al, 2015). Z. latifolia is one of the four wild rice species indigenous in northeastern India, Burma, China, Japan, in parts of Siberia and Russia. The biomass yield recorded as 109.9 tonnes dry weight ha-1 where 80% are in below ground (Champion and Hofstra, 2006)
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