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. 2022 May 17;8(5):515.
doi: 10.3390/jof8050515.

Molecular and Pathogenic Characterization of Fusarium Species Associated with Corm Rot Disease in Saffron from China

Seyed Ali Mirghasempour  1 , David J Studholme  2 , Weiliang Chen  1 , Weidong Zhu  3 , Bizeng Mao  1
Affiliations

Molecular and Pathogenic Characterization of Fusarium Species Associated with Corm Rot Disease in Saffron from China

Seyed Ali Mirghasempour et al. J Fungi (Basel). .

Abstract

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) is a commercial spice crop well-known throughout the world, valued for culinary, colorant, and pharmaceutical purposes. In China, Fusarium nirenbergiae was detected as causative agent of saffron corm rot, the most pervasive disease for the first time in 2020. In the present study, 261 Fusarium-like isolates were recovered from 120 rotted corms in four saffron producing fields at Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Yunnan provinces, China, in 2021. A combination of morpho-cultural features and multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) of the concatenated rpb2 (DNA-directed RNA polymerase II largest subunit) and tef1 (translation elongation factor 1-α) partial sequences showed that the isolates from saffron belong to Fusarium nirenbergiae as well as F. commune, and F. annulatum with isolation frequencies of 58.2%, 26.8%, and 14.9%, respectively. Notably, F. commune was more prevalent than F. annulatum in the collected samples. Pathogenicity tests confirmed that both species were pathogenic on saffron corm. This is the first report of F. annulatum and F. commune causing corm rot of saffron, globally. Outcomes of the current research demonstrate that Fusarium spp. associated with saffron corm rot are more diverse than previously reported. Furthermore, some plants were infected by two or more Fusarium species. Our findings broaden knowledge about Fusarium spp. that inflict corm rot and assist the development of control measures.

Keywords: Crocus sativus; F. commune; Fusarium annulatum; MLSA; corm rot.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) Typical field symptom of Fusarium corm rot on saffron in China. (B) Longitudinal section of corms exhibiting rot developing into endosperm.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Colony and conidia morphology of F. commune and F. annulatum isolated from symptomatic corms of Crocus sativus. (A) Upper view of a colonies on PDA; (B) reverse view of colony on PDA; (C) Macroconidia; (D) Microconidia—scale bars: (C,D) = 10 µm.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Phylogenetic tree generated from maximum likelihood analysis of combined rpb2 and tef1 sequences, depicting the phylogenetic relationships of Fusarium species causing corm rot disease in Crocus sativus from China. Isolates recovered from saffron during the current study are indicated by a black square (■). Clades including isolates obtained from saffron are shaded in color. Ex-type, neotype, and epitype strains are indicated in bold. Support values representing bootstrap percentages are shown on the branches.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Pathogenicity of F. commune and F. annulatum isolates on C. sativus. (A) Corm rot symptoms resulting from inoculation with mycelial plugs. (B) Symptoms of rot on corms inoculated with conidial suspensions.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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