Abstract
BackgroundVerticillium dahliae (Vd) is a soil-borne vascular pathogen which causes severe wilt symptoms in a wide range of plants. The microsclerotia produced by the pathogen survive in soil for more than 15 years.ResultsHere we demonstrate that an exudate preparation induces cytoplasmic calcium elevation in Arabidopsis roots, and the disease development requires the ethylene-activated transcription factor EIN3. Furthermore, the beneficial endophytic fungus Piriformospora indica (Pi) significantly reduced Vd-mediated disease development in Arabidopsis. Pi inhibited the growth of Vd in a dual culture on PDA agar plates and pretreatment of Arabidopsis roots with Pi protected plants from Vd infection. The Pi-pretreated plants grew better after Vd infection and the production of Vd microsclerotia was dramatically reduced, all without activating stress hormones and defense genes in the host.ConclusionsWe conclude that Pi is an efficient biocontrol agent that protects Arabidopsis from Vd infection. Our data demonstrate that Vd growth is restricted in the presence of Pi and the additional signals from Pi must participate in the regulation of the immune response against Vd.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12870-014-0268-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Verticillium dahliae (Vd) is a soil-borne vascular pathogen which causes severe wilt symptoms in a wide range of plants
The number of microsclerotia produced by Vd in the dual culture is less than the number of microsclerotia produced by Vd growing alone
In summary, our data demonstrate that Piriformospora indica (Pi) is a very efficient biocontrol agent for Vd
Summary
Verticillium dahliae (Vd) is a soil-borne vascular pathogen which causes severe wilt symptoms in a wide range of plants. Verticillium species are wide-spread soil-borne fungi which cause vascular diseases in many plant species and are responsible for devastating diseases for plants that can thwart agricultural production. The vascular wilt fungus Verticillium dahliae (Vd), for instance, infects more than 200 plant species, among them agriculturally and horticulturally important crops and ornamental plants [1,2,3]. Vd has a broad host range and infects plants from temperate to subtropical climates [1]. Because of their complex life style of the Verticillium species, their control by classical pesticides. Quite recently, a large number of proteins and metabolites from different organisms as well as phytohormones have been described to be involved in establishing partial resistance against Verticillium wilt [15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22]
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