Figure 3
The G. cichoracearum life cycle on Col-0, Te-0 and Kas-1 accessions. (a) Fungal structures differentiated on leaf infected tissues. NG: non-germinated conidia; PGT: primary germ tube; SGT: secondary germ tube; R: ramified hyphae colony; FC: foot cell; iCph: immature conidiophore; mCph: mature conidiophore. Bars: 30 μm. Representative haustoria (HA), iCph and mCph found at the indicated times in similar samples are shown in the insets. (b) Conidial germination. Percentages of germinated conidia were obtained from the analysis of 10 inoculated leaves, and expressed as averaged weighed percentages ± coefficient of variance. Conidia showing PGT and subsequent differentiated structures were considered germinated. (c) Pattern of fungal differentiation at 48 hpi. The relative content of PGT, HA, SGT and R is indicated. Values are normalized to the number of germinated conidia. One representative experiment from three independent ones is shown. (d) Fungal asexual reproduction. The total content of conidiophores (mature plus immature) per colony is shown at 5, 7 and 10 days post-inoculation. Values resulted from the analysis of 100 colonies per accession (10–20 leaves from 5–10 different plants) and represented the average ± SD. Similar results were obtained in three independent experiments.