Cell surface characteristics of Mortierella species and their interaction with a mycoparasite

Abstract

Cell surface characteristics of three Mortierella species differing in their response to a mycoparasite, Piptocephalis virginiana, were examined. Their cell wall composition was typical of mucoraceous fungi with chitin and chitosan as major polysaccharides. Electron microscopy revealed that the mycoparasite penetrated and formed haustoria in the hyphae of susceptible hosts, M. pusilla and M. isabellina. The failure of the parasite to establish contact and penetrate a hypha of the nonhost, M. candelabrum, was not due to cell wall thickness, rigidity, or chitin contents. Markedly different protein patterns obtained from crude alkali extracts of host and nonhost cell walls by sodium dodecyl sulfate – polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis might explain the difference in host and nonhost response to the mycoparasite. Whereas most of the bands differed only in intensity after staining with either Coomassie blue or periodic acid – Schiff reagent, there were two distinct bands of glycoproteins (76 000 and 74 000) observed in the host species which were absent in the nonhost species.