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Functional Plant Biology Functional Plant Biology Society
Plant function and evolutionary biology
RESEARCH ARTICLE

The rmc locus does not affect plant interactions or defence-related gene expression when tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is infected with the root fungal parasite, Rhizoctonia

Ling-Ling Gao A B C , F. Andrew Smith A and Sally E. Smith A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Soil and Land Systems and the Centre for Soil–Plant Interactions, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia.

B Current address: CSIRO Plant Industry, Private Bag 5, Wembley, WA 6913, Australia.

C Corresponding author. Email: lingling.gao@csiro.au

Functional Plant Biology 33(3) 289-296 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP05153
Submitted: 27 June 2005  Accepted: 7 November 2005   Published: 2 March 2006

Abstract

A tomato mutant with reduced mycorrhizal colonisation, rmc, confers resistance to almost all arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal species tested, although there is variation in colonisation of different root cell layers by different fungi and one species of AM fungus can colonise this mutant relatively normally. These variations indicate a high degree of specificity in relation to AM colonisation. We explored the possibility of specificity or otherwise in interactions between rmc and three non-AM root-infecting fungi, Rhizoctonia solani anastomosis groups (AG) 4 and AG8, and binucleate Rhizoctonia (BNR). There were no differences between the wild type tomato 76R and rmc in the speed or extent to which these fungi infected roots or caused disease. Infection by R. solani induced high levels of defence-related gene expression in both tomato genotypes relative to non-infected plants. In contrast, with BNR the expression of these genes was not induced or induced to a much lower extent than with R. solani. The expression of defence-related genes with these two non-AM fungi was very similar in the two plant genotypes. It was different from effects observed during colonisation by AM fungi, which enhanced expression of defence-related genes in rmc compared with the wild type tomato. The specificity and molecular mechanisms of rmc in control of AM colonisation are discussed.

Keywords: arbuscular mycorrhiza, mycorrhiza-defective mutant, symbiosis, root disease.


Acknowledgments

We thank Ms Debbie Miller for excellent technical support. Ling-Ling Gao thanks Dr Wolfgang Knogge and Dr Gabriele Delp for supervision during her PhD study. L.-L. Gao also acknowledges the receipt of an Adelaide International Postgraduate Research Scholarship. The work was supported by the Australian Research Council and a University of Adelaide Small Grant. We are grateful to Drs J. van Kan, Department of Phytopathology, Wageningen Agricultural University, Wageningen, The Netherlands and J. Robb, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, who made the cDNA clones available to us.


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