Archivio Journal of Plant Pathology

Abstract:

Fusarium verticillioides is a pathogen that, nevertheless often asymptomatic, may cause ear and stalk rot in maize. F. verticillioides produces, under suitable environmental conditions, large amount of fumonisins, which is potential carcinogenic to humans and animals being classified as IARC2B. Recent studies demonstrated that the pathogen and the host exchange an oxylipin-based cross talk during their interaction. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether environmental conditions, namely water activity at 0.90 and 20°C, which are limiting for the pathogen development, may affect maize/fungal oxylipin genes expression profile during their interaction. Herein we showed that fungal Fvlds1-3, Fvlox, Zmlox3 and the maize defense-related ZmPR1 significantly changed their expression after infection at 0.90 aw and 20°C. Moreover, the expression of the maize genes peaked subsequently the peak of fungal genes expression. We suggest that, under these experimental conditions, the plant and the pathogen coordinated reciprocally oxylipin genes expression. This kind of modulation of fungal and plant gene expression was suggestive of the “zig zag model” as proposed for other plant-pathogen interaction system.