Enhancing tools for Armillaria : in vitro fruiting, expression studies and herbaceous plant inoculation assays

• Main Author: Ford, Kathryn L.
• Published: University of Bristol 2015
• Subjects: 579
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.690769

Armillaria, or the 'honey fungus', is an edible basidiomycete that causes Armillaria root disease on numerous species in forests gardens and agricultural environments worldwide. Armillaria research has been hindered by several factors: the lack of a reliable in vitro fruiting system for heterothallic Armillaria mellea requiring reliance upon intermittently available wild-collected isolates, existing pathogenicity assays that are laborious, time-consuming and often conducted under variable conditions and limited availability of genetic tools. Furthermore, Armillaria is diploid and contains homothallic and heterothallic subspecies but the genetic mechanisms controlling the different heterothallic and homothallic lifestyles and ploidy in this genus are unknown.