Tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum L.) is an economically important crop, widely cultivated in China. Since 2021, a new leaf spot disease has been seen frequently in Enshi, Xiangyang, Yichang, and Shiyan, all in Hubei Province, China. Diseased leaves exhibiting roundish lesions with greenish-yellow edges were collected to determine the causal agent in summer 2022. After isolation, morphological characterization, and molecular identif...

Summary Colletotrichum higginsianum is an important fungal pathogen causing anthracnose disease of cruciferous plants. In this study, we characterized a putative orthologue of yeast SPE1 in C . higginsianum , named ChODC. Deletion mutants of ChODC were defective in hyphal and conidial development. Importantly, deletion of ChODC significantly affected appressorium‐mediated penetration in C . higginsianum . However, polyamines p...

Summary Long non‐coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play an important role in biological processes but regulation and function of lncRNAs remain largely unelucidated, especially in fungi. Ustilaginoidea virens is an economically important fungus causing a devastating disease of rice. By combining microscopic and RNA‐seq analyses, we comprehensively characterized lncRNAs of this fungus in infection and developmental processes and defined fo...

Summary Ustilaginoidea virens is an economically important fungus causing a devastating grain disease, rice false smut. An insertional mutagenesis screen was used to explore biological mechanisms underlying infection process of U . virens . T184, a new mutant was identified, with abnormal conidial morphology and deficient virulence. Analysis of the T‐DNA inserted gene UvPal1 in the mutant confirmed it as a putative homologue o...

Marigold is reported to have antibacterial activity, and effectively protect crops against soil-borne diseases. However, it is not known whether and how tobacco bacterial wilt (TBW) could be mitigated via intercropping with marigold under field conditions. In this study, a field experiment was performed to measure and compare the occurrence of TBW, the soil chemical properties, and soil microbial composition and diversity betw...

Summary Lipid droplets (LDs) serve as one of the major reservoirs in conidia of Magnaporthe oryzae and are quickly utilized during appressorium formation. Here, we identified a gene, LDP1 , encoding a perilipin that is important for LD formation and utilization during appressorium maturation. LDP1 is highly expressed in conidium and immature appressorium. Disruption mutants of LDP1 were significantly reduced in virulence, due...