Title： Interactive effects of water stress and powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis) on the alkaloid production of Achnatherum inebrians, infected by Epichlo? endophyte

Authors: Li Nana, Xia Chao, Zhong Rui, Ju Yawen, Nan Zhibiao, Christensen Michael J, Zhang Xingxu*

Journal: Science China Life Sciences (生物三区, IF₂₀₁₆=2.781)

Doi:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-017-9245-y

Abstract: Achnatherum inebrians, also known as drunken horse grass (DHG), is a toxic perennial bunch grass that can be infected by Epichlo? gansuensis or E. inebrians (Chen et al., 2015). It is well known that Epichlo? fungal endophytes can protect their host plants from herbivores by producing different classes of alkaloids. A recent trial demonstrated that sheep exhibited notable toxicity symptoms by directly feeding with endophyte-infected (E+) A. inebrians (Liang et al., 2017). The changes in the alkaloid contents of host plants may be closely related to the tolerance of DHG to the changes in environmental temperature, soil pH, heavy metal composition (Wan, 2017) as well as salt and drought stresses (Zhang et al., 2011). In addition, the presence of Epichlo? endophyte has been reported to result in significant improvements in the resistance of host DHG to powdery mildew under various soil water conditions (Xia et al., 2016). However, it is still unclear whether the changes in the alkaloid contents of host DHG would affect the disease resistance. Therefore, this
study was conducted to determine whether the damage caused due to powdery mildew affects the symbionts’ alkaloid production of DHG under different soil moisture conditions, which could further strengthen our understanding on whether the alkaloid types and contents play a role in the process of host DHG disease resistance.

链接：https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11427-017-9245-y.