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Genetic diversity and pathogenicity of Fusarium oxysporum isolated from wilted rocket plants in Italy

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Abstract

Thirty-six isolates of Fusarium oxysporum originated from Eruca vesicaria and Diplotaxis tenuifolia together with eight reference strains belonging to the formae speciales raphani, matthioli and conglutinans, typical on the Brassicaceae family, were tested for pathogenicity on two species of rocket plants (E. vesicaria L., syn. E. sativa, cv. ‘Rucola coltivata’; and D. tenuifolia cv. ‘Winter’) cultivated in the glasshouse. The results showed that different isolates were slightly, moderately or highly virulent. The strains were examined for differences in the nucleotide sequence of the ribosomal DNA (rDNA) intergenic spacer (IGS) region, about 2.5 kb long. The phylogenetic (neighbor-joining) analysis performed on the isolates enabled identification of four different groups, named I, II, III and IV. Thirty-one isolates out of 36 clustered in group I and were genetically similar to F. oxysporum f.sp. raphani. By considering the pathogenicity of the strains included in Group I, a partial host specialization could be observed: the average disease index of the isolates from D. tenuifolia was higher on wild rocket, whereas the average disease index of the isolates from E. vesicaria was higher on cultivated rocket. Moreover, isolates from cultivated rocket showed, on average, a higher degree of aggressiveness than the isolates from wild rocket. Concerning Group I, the sequence analysis confirmed the homogeneity of the population, with only five parsimony-informative SNPs and five haplotypes. Twenty-six out of 31 isolates belonged to haplotype 1. Groups II and III were genetically similar to strains of F. oxysporum f.sp. matthioli. Three other strains, not pathogenic or with a medium level of virulence, clustered together in Group 4, but their sequence was distant from that of other formae speciales. The pathogenicity and IGS analysis confirmed the presence of virulence variation and genetic diversity among the F. oxysporum isolates studied. To our knowledge, this is the first report of differentiation of formae speciales of F. oxysporum on rocket plants by IGS analysis.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the projects “Advanced Diagnostic Tools, Disease Detection Networking and Technical Extension (ADVANET) for non-conventional disease control strategies in vegetable production in Piedmont” and “Safe Food Control Development of innovative systems and technologies for the production, storage, processing and valorization of Piedmontese fruit and vegetables” funded by the Piedmont Region. We are especially grateful to Dr. Robert Milne, who recently passed away, for his last accurate revision of manuscripts of our research group.

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  1. Agroinnova—Centre of Competence for the Innovation in the Agro-Environmental Sector, University of Torino, 10095, Grugliasco, Turin, Italy

    Krishnamoorthy Srinivasan, Davide Spadaro, Anna Poli, Giovanna Gilardi, Maria Lodovica Gullino & Angelo Garibaldi

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  1. Krishnamoorthy Srinivasan
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  2. Davide Spadaro
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  3. Anna Poli
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  4. Giovanna Gilardi
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  5. Maria Lodovica Gullino
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  6. Angelo Garibaldi
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Correspondence to Davide Spadaro.

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Srinivasan, K., Spadaro, D., Poli, A. et al. Genetic diversity and pathogenicity of Fusarium oxysporum isolated from wilted rocket plants in Italy. Phytoparasitica 40, 157–170 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12600-011-0207-z

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