Skip to main content
Log in

Fusarium udum revisited: a common, but poorly understood member of the Fusarium fujikuroi species complex

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Mycological Progress Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Fusarium udum is the causal agent of a wilt disease on pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) in tropical regions. This species shares morphological characteristics with F. oxysporum, leading to misidentification when the diagnosis is solely based on morphological markers. The sexual stage of this fungus was observed on stems of Cajanus in India and was formally described as Gibberella indica. In Brazil, a wilt disease is reported on Crotalaria, but the etiological agent has not been identified correctly so far. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the causal agent of a wilt on Crotalaria belongs to the same species pathogenic to C. cajan. Strains obtained from diseased Crotalaria spp. were characterized through molecular phylogeny of TEF, TUB and RPB2, laboratory crosses, morphological markers, and pathogenicity tests. Strains from Crotalaria from Brazil formed a well-supported clade with F. udum strains from Crotalaria and Cajanus from other countries. Strains from Brazil intercrossed among themselves and also with others from all geographic regions, and formed fertile perithecia, defining a distinct mating population inside the Fusarium fujikuroi species complex. One strain obtained from Cajanus cajan in India is indicated as epitype, and female-fertile tester strains of both mating types were selected for the identification of field isolates through sexual crosses. These results confirm that the species associated with wilt disease on Crotalaria and Cajanus is F. udum. Wilt symptoms caused by F. udum in Cr. ochroleuca are described and illustrated.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Armstrong JK, Armstrong GM (1950) The Fusarium wilt of Crotalaria. Phytopathology 40:785

    Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong JK, Armstrong GM (1951) Physiological races of the Crotalaria wilt Fusarium. Phytopathology 41:714–721

    Google Scholar 

  • Booth C (1971) The genus Fusarium. Commonwealth Mycological Institute, Kew 237p

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler EJ (1910) The wilt disease of pigeon pea and the parasitism of Neocosmospora vasinfecta Smith. Mem Dept Agric India 9:1–64

    Google Scholar 

  • Carrera CJM (1946) Fusarium oxysporum Schl. f. crotalariae n.f. nuevo parasito vascular de Crotalaria. Bol Soc Bras Agron 9:241–243

    Google Scholar 

  • Darriba D, Taboada GL, Doallo R, Posada D (2012) jModelTest 2: more models, new heuristics and parallel computing. Nat Methods 9:772

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Gerlach W, Nirenberg H (1982) The genus Fusarium, a pictorial atlas. Mitt Biol Bundesanst Land Forstwirtsch Berlin Dahlem 209:1–406

    Google Scholar 

  • Gordon WL (1952) The occurrence of Fusarium species in Canada. II. Prevalence and taxonomy of Fusarium species in cereal seed. Can J Bot 30:209–251

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hepperle D (2004) SeqAssem©. Win32–Version. A sequence analysis tool contig assembler and trace data visualization tool for molecular sequences. Available at: http://www.sequentix.de

  • Joffily J (1946) A propósito do parasitismo do Fusarium vasinfectum em seis espécies do gênero Crotalaria. Bol Soc Bras Agron 9:223–241

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamontagne–Godwin J, Reeder R, Buddie AG, James M (2012) First confirmed report of Gibberella indica on Cajanus cajan in Barbados, Lesser Antilles. New Dis Rep 26:10

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lepoint PCE, Munaut FTJ, Maraite HAA (2005) Gibberella xylarioides sensu lato from Coffea canephora: a new mating population in the Gibberella fujikuroi species complex. Appl Environ Microbiol 71:8466–8471

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Leslie JF, Summerell BA (2006) The Fusarium laboratory manual. Blackwell Publishers, Malden

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lima CS, Pfenning LH, Costa SS, Abreu LM, Leslie JF (2012) Fusarium tupiense sp. nov., a member of the Gibberella fujikuroi complex that causes mango malformation in Brazil. Mycologia 104:408–1419

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Liu YJ, Whelen S, Hall BD (1999) Phylogenetic relationships among ascomycetes: evidence from an RNA polymerse II subunit. Mol Biol Evol 16:1799–1808

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Nirenberg HI, O’Donnell K (1998) New Fusarium species and combinations within the Fusarium fujikuroi species complex. Mycologia 90:434–458

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Donnell K, Cigelnik E, Nirenberg HI (1998a) Molecular systematics and phylogeography of the Gibberella fujikuroi species complex. Mycologia 90:465–493

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Donnell K, Kistler HC, Cigelnik E, Ploetz RD (1998b) Multiple evolutionary origins of the fungus causing Panama disease of banana: concordant evidence from nuclear and mitochondrial gene genealogies. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 95:2044–2049

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • O’Donnell K, Nirenberg HI, Aoki T, Cigelnik EA (2000) Multigene phylogeny of the Gibberella fujikuroi species complex: detection of additional phylogenetically distinct species. Mycoscience 41:61–78

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Donnell K, Sutton DA, Fothergill A, McCarthy D, Rinaldi MG, Brandt ME, Zhang N, Geiser DM (2008) Molecular phylogenetic diversity, multilocus haplotype nomenclature, and in vitro antifungal resistance within the Fusarium solani species complex. J Clin Microbiol 46:2477–2490

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • O’Donnell K, Humber RA, Geiser DM, Robert VARG, Crous PW, Johnston PR, Aoki T, Rooney AP, Rehner SA (2012) Phylogenetic diversity of insecticolous fusaria inferred from multilocus DNA sequence data and their molecular identification via FUSARIUM-ID and Fusarium MLST. Mycologia 104:427–445

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Padwick GW (1940) The genus Fusarium. V. Fusarium udum Butler, F. vasinfectum Atk. and F. lateritium Nees var. uncinatum Wr. Ind J Agric Sci 10:869–878

    Google Scholar 

  • Purohit A, Ganguly S, Ghosh G, Kundu Chaudhuri R, Datta S, Chakraborti D (2017) Variability among isolates of Fusarium udum and the effect on progression of wilt in pigeonpea. Eur J Plant Pathol 149:73–87

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Rai B, Upadhyay RS (1982) Gibberella indica: the perfect state of Fusarium udum. Mycologia 94:343–346

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steenkamp ET, Wingfield BD, Coutinho TA, Zeller KA, Wingfield MJ, Marasas WFO, Leslie JF (2000) PCR–based identification of MAT–1 and MAT–2 in the Gibberella fujikuroi species complex. Appl Environ Microbiol 66:4378–4382

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Summerell BA, Burgess LW, Bullock S, Backhouse D, Tric ND (1998) Occurrence of perithecia of Gibberella fujikuroi mating population a (Fusarium moniliforme) on maize stubble in northern Vietnam. Mycologia 90:890–895

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tamura K, Peterson D, Peterson N, Stecher G, Nei M, Kumar S (2011) MEGA5: molecular evolutionary genetics analysis using maximum likelihood, evolutionary distance, and maximum parsimony methods. Mol Biol Evol 28:2731–2739

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Van Hove F, Waalwijk C, Logrieco A, Munaut F, Moretti A (2011) Gibberella musae (Fusarium musae) sp. nov., a recently discovered species from banana is sister to F. verticillioides. Mycologia 103:570–585

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wang CL, Dai YL (2018) First report of sunn hemp Fusarium wilt caused by Fusarium udum f. sp. crotalariae in Taiwan. Plant Dis 102:1038

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work is dedicated to the memory of Walter Gams, who introduced the first author to the secrets of the genus Fusarium, when he could not even imagine the importance that this act would have in his further professional life. Thanks are due to Edson Luis Rezende for skillful technical assistance and to Dr. Ivan Pereira for preparing the perithecial sections. We also thank Gilson Soares, Universidade Estadual do Maranhão, São Luiz, Brazil, Antonio Logrieco, ISPA, Bari, Italy and Ludwig M. Niessen, TU München, Germany, for providing field isolates and reference strains.

Funding

This research was supported in part by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico CNPq (Proc. 406335/2013-5). Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior CAPES provided a fellowship to MMC and SSC, and CNPq to MPM. LHP acknowledges a grant given by CNPq (Proc. 308291/2013-1).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ludwig H. Pfenning.

Additional information

Section Editor: Hans-Josef Schroers and Marc Stadler

This article is part of the “Special Issue on hyphomycete taxonomy and diversity in honour of Walter Gams who passed away in April 2017.”

Electronic supplementary material

Fig. S1

One of four most parsimonious phylogenetic trees inferred from partial TEF1 sequences showing the phylogenetic relationships of Fusarium udum with other species in Fusarium fujikuroi species complex. Bootstrap values (1000 replications) are shown at the internodes and branch lengths are indicated by the scale at the bottom. Tree length = 169 steps, confidence interval [CI] = 0.810 and retention index [RI] = 0.850. Strains from Brazil are indicated in bold. Ex-type and ex-epitype strains are indicated with T and ET, respectively. Tester strains are indicated by M1 and M2, M1 = Mating type 1, M2 = Mating type 2 (PDF 23 kb)

Fig. S2

One of 10 most parsimonious phylogenetic trees inferred from partial TUB sequences showing the phylogenetic relationships of Fusarium udum with other species in Fusarium fujikuroi species complex. Bootstrap values (1000 replications) are shown at the internodes and branch lengths are indicated by the scale at the bottom. Tree length = 86 steps, confidence interval [CI] = 0.926 and retention index [RI] = 0.969. Strains from Brazil are indicated in bold. Ex-type and ex-epitype strains are indicated with T and ET, respectively. Tester strains are indicated by M1 and M2, M1 = Mating type 1, M2 = Mating type 2 (PDF 24 kb)

Fig. S3

One of five most parsimonious phylogenetic trees inferred from partial RPB2 sequences showing the phylogenetic relationships of Fusarium udum with other species in Fusarium fujikuroi species complex. Bootstrap values (1000 replications) are shown at the internodes and branch lengths are indicated by the scale at the bottom. Tree length = 239 steps, confidence interval [CI] = 0.720 and retention index [RI] = 0.820. Strains from Brazil are indicated in bold. Ex-type and ex-epitype strains are indicated with T and ET, respectively. Tester strains are indicated by M1 and M2, M1 = Mating type 1, M2 = Mating type 2 (PDF 398 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Pfenning, L.H., de Melo, M.P., Costa, M.M. et al. Fusarium udum revisited: a common, but poorly understood member of the Fusarium fujikuroi species complex. Mycol Progress 18, 107–117 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11557-018-1446-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11557-018-1446-x

Keywords

Navigation