An ultrastructural study of the late-blight fungus Phytophthora infestans and its interaction with the foliage of two potato cultivars possessing different levels of general (field) resistance

Abstract

In the susceptible reaction of foliage of the cultivar Majestic there was extensive colonization of the host tissue prior to the onset of necrosis. The development of intracellular hyphae was confined to the initially parasitized palisade cells. Thereafter the fungus grew as intercellular hyphae, which penetrated host cells and formed haustoria. Haustorial morphology was highly variable, ranging in type from small spherical to much larger digitlike structures. Haustorial formation was preceded by the laying down of a moderately electron-dense penetration matrix bounded by the host plasmalemma. This material probably constituted the extrahaustorial matrix once haustorial development had taken place. The matrical material stained with silver proteinate reagent, and this reaction was blocked by dimedone, indicating that it was carbohydrate in nature. In the resistant reaction of foliage of the cultivar Shamrock, the epidermal cells rapidly became necrotic. Quantities of exceedingly electron-dense granules appeared in the necrotic host cells. Host organelles were no longer recognizable, but the fungal cytoplasm remained intact. In adjoining host cells, thin cell wall appositions were formed, which had a heterogeneous composition. On occasions when the fungus attempted to invade an underlying mesophyll cell, papillae usually formed in that cell at the site of incipient penetration.