Epigenetics – a new way to understand reactions of plant pathogenic fungi

Abstract

Fusarium sporotrichioides isolate 62423 from the JKI-strain collection was incubated under different environmental conditions resulting in a change of its phenotype. The chromosomal DNA was allowed to be restricted completely by using the isoschizomere endonucleases MspI and HpaII both recognizing the palindrome CCGG, however, occurring differently according to their degree of methylation. This could be shown by PCR amplification using primers of the Tri14 gene. The phenotypic change of isolate 62423 was manifested when growing on PDA by forming colored rings when dark blue light was applied. There was a correlation of the methylation intensity when the DNA of the fungus was compared with the same isolate incubated at normal daylight resulting in different amounts of amplified DNA.