Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2008 May;9(3):385-402.
doi: 10.1111/j.1364-3703.2007.00465.x.

Phytophthora infestans: the plant (and R gene) destroyer

William Fry  1
Affiliations
Review

Phytophthora infestans: the plant (and R gene) destroyer

William Fry. Mol Plant Pathol. 2008 May.

Erratum in

  • Mol Plant Pathol. 2008 Sep;9(5):727

Abstract

Phytophthora infestans remains a problem to production agriculture. Historically there have been many controversies concerning its biology and pathogenicity, some of which remain today. Advances in molecular biology and genomics promise to reveal fascinating insight into its pathogenicity and biology. However, the plasticity of its genome as revealed in population diversity and in the abundance of putative effectors means that this oomycete remains a formidable foe.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Asexual life cycle of P. infestans. (A,B) Sporangiophores grow out of diseased tissue. (C) Sporangia are released into the atmosphere for aerial dispersal during a drop in relative humidity, or they can be dispersed in water splashes. (D) Indirect germination releases zoospores, which, after encystment and germination on host tissue, produce lesions (E) visible after 2–4 days.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The speed with which late blight can destroy a field of potatoes is impressive. A field that appeared ‘healthy’ on one week (A) can be visibly severely diseased in the next week (B), and within another week can be totally destroyed (C).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Leaves, stems (A) and tubers (B) are susceptible. Sporangia wash from foliage lesions to contact tubers in the soil. Infected tubers are particularly vulnerable to damage from soft rot, so that if infected potatoes are harvested during warm wet weather, soft rot can cause nearly complete destruction. The potatoes in (C) were discarded from storage within 2 weeks of harvest because late blight infections enabled soft rotting bacteria to destroy the majority of the tubers.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Oospores, oogonia and antheridia of P. infestans. (A) Germinating oospores (photo by Richard Shattock). (B) The female transgenic parent was expressing GUS (blue), but the non‐transgenic male parent was not, indicating an outcrossing sexual interaction (from Judelson, 1997a, and reproduced with permission).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Phenotype of a tomato‐unspecialized isolate (A), and a tomato‐specialized isolate (B) infection on tomato (Smart et al., 2003). The tomato‐specialized isolate was sporulating profusely with no evidence of necrosis. The figures are from Smart et al. (2003).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abad, Z.G. and Abad, J.A. (1995) Historical evidence on the occurrence of late blight of potato, tomato, and pear melon in the Andes of South America In: Phytophthora Infestans, Vol. 150 (Dowley L.J., Bannon E., Cooke L.R., Keane T. and O'Sullivan E., eds), pp. 36–41. Dublin: Boole Press Ltd.
    1. Adl, S.M. , Simpson, A.G.B. , Farmer, M.A. , Andersen, R.A. , Anderson, O.R. , Barta, J.R. , Bowser, S.S. , Brugerolle, G.U.Y. , Fensome, R.A. , Fredericq, S. , James, T.Y. , Karpov, S. , Kugrens, P. , Krug, J. , Lane, C.E. , Lewis, L.A. , Lodge, J. , Lynn, D.H. , Mann, D.G. , McCourt, R.M. , Mendoza, L. , Moestrup, O. , Mozley‐Standridge, S.E. , Nerad, T.A. , Shearer, C.A. , Smirnov, A.V. , Spiegel, F.W. and Taylor, M.F.J.R. (2005) The new higher level classification of eukaryotes with emphasis on the taxonomy of protists. J. Eukaryot. Microbiol. 52, 399–451. - PubMed
    1. Ah Fong, A.M.V. and Judelson, H.S. (2003) Cell cycle regulator Cdc14 is expressed during sporulation but not hyphal growth in the fungus‐like oomycete Phytophthora infestans . Mol. Microbiol. 50, 487–494. - PubMed
    1. Andersson, B. , Sandstrom, M. and Stromberg, A. (1998) Indications of soil borne inoculum of Phytophthora infestans. Potato Res. 41, 305–310.
    1. Andrivon, D. (1996) The origin of Phytophthora infestans populations present in Europe in the 1840s: a critical review of the historical and scientific evidence. Plant Pathol. 45, 1027–1035.

LinkOut - more resources