WELCOME

TOPIC TO BE PRESENTED: 1.MECHANISM OF GENETIC VARIATION IN PLANT PATHOGEN,

VARIABILITY IN PATHOGEN

One of the most dynamic and significant aspects of biology is that characteristics of individuals within a species are not fixed, i.e., they are not identical but vary from one individual to another. Variability in pathogens results in the evolution of the followings a) Variant: The progeny of a pathogen showing variation in characters from the parents. b) Biotype: Progeny developed by a variant having similar heredity. c) Race or strain: A group of biotypes with identical characters. d) Variety or forma specialis: When a group of races of identical morphology attack and infect only a specific host genus or group of species.

MECHANISMS OF VARIABILITY

A. General Mechanisms of Variability: a. Mutation:

A mutation is a more or less abrupt change in the genetic material of an organism, which is then transmitted in a hereditary fashion to the progeny. Mutations represent changes in the sequence of bases in the DNA either through substitution of one base for another or through addition or deletion of one or many base pairs. Mutations occur spontaneously in nature in all living organisms. Since the average fungus genome consists of about 10,000 genes, one cell in a hundred could be a mutant. b. Recombination: Recombination occurs primarily during the sexual reproduction of plants, fungi, and nematodes whenever two haploid (1N) nuclei, containing genetic material that may differ in many loci, unite to form a diploid (2N) nucleus, called a zygote. The zygote, sooner or later, divides meiotically and produces new haploid cells (gametes, spores, mycelium). Recombination of (different alleles of the same genes) occurs during the meiotic division of the zygote as a result of genetic crossovers in which parts of chromatids of one chromosome of a pair are exchanged with parts of chromatids of the other chromosome of the pair.

B. Specialized Mechanisms of Variability in Pathogens

FUNGI: a. Heterokaryosis: Heterokaryosis is the condition in which, as a result of fertilization or anastomosis, cells of fungal hyphae or parts of hyphae contain two or more nuclei that are genetically different. For example, in Basidiomycetes, dikaryotic state may differ drastically from the haploid mycelium and spores of the fungus. In P. graminis tritici, the fungus causing stem rust of wheat, the haploid basidiospores can infect barberry but not wheat, and the haploid mycelium can grow only in barberry; however, the dikaryotic aeciospores and uredospores can infect wheat but not barberry, and the dikaryotic mycelium can grow in both barberry and wheat. b. Parasexualism: Genetic recombination without sexual cycle, in which there is no definite coordination between recombination, segregation and reduction as there is no meiosis, has been termed as parasexual. The essential steps of the parasexual cycle are 1. Heterokaryosis, 2. Fusion of unlike nuclei to form heterozygous diploids in the vegetative cells and 3. Segregation and recombination at mitosis. c. Heteroploidy: Heteroploidy is the existence of cells, tissues, or whole organisms with numbers of chromosomes per nucleus that are different from the normal 1N or 2N complement for the particular organism. It has been shown, for example, that some heteroploids, such as diploids of the normally haploid fungus Verticillium alboatrum, the cause of wilt in cotton, lose the ability to infect cotton plants even when derived from highly virulent haploids.

BACTERIA

a. Conjugation: Two compatible bacteria come in contact with one another and a small portion of the chromosome or plasmid from one bacterium is transferred to the other through a conjugation bridge or sex pilus. b. Transformation: Bacterial cells are transformed genetically by absorbing and incorporating in their own cells genetic material secreted by, or released during rupture of, other bacteria. c. Transduction: A bacterial virus (phage) transfers genetic material from the bacterium in which the phage was produced to the bacterium it infects next.

VIRUS
When two strains of the same virus are inoculated into the same host plant, one or more new virus strains are recovered with properties (virulence, symptomatology etc) different from those of either of the original strains introduced into the host. a. Pseudo-recombination: In mixed infection of virus having fragments of the genome may aggregate and re-assemble to form a new type of progeny. b. Genome masking: This can be result from direct interaction between different viruses in mixed inoculation. The genome of one virus is encapsidated in the protein of another strain of virus.