Encystment and germination of the parasitic chytrid Rozella allomycis on host hyphae

Abstract

Zoospores of the obligately parasitic chytrid Rozella allomycis which settle upon hyphae of the water mold host, Allomyces arbuscula, encyst and germinate before their protoplasts penetrate into the host cytoplasm. This process has been examined by light and electron microscopy. Three stages which follow the attachment to the host and the retraction of the zoospore's flagellum are described: (1) the early cyst lacks a wall; it is discoid, and its shape is maintained by the coil of the retracted axoneme which forms its rim; (2) a cyst wall is formed while multivesicular bodies occur at the cell periphery and eventually disappear; a germ tube starts to grow at the point of attachment; and (3) the firm-walled cyst is spheroidal; it has a fully developed germ tube with a specialized class of vesicles; it also forms a distal, flattened vacuole whose swelling eventually injects the Rozella protoplast into the host; at this stage the retracted axoneme has disappeared and the cell's organelles have undergone extensive changes. Electron-dense, "gamma-like" granules enclosed in vacuoles may play a major role in the formation of both the cyst wall and the distal vacuole. These granules appear to give rise to small vesicles, and thus to multivesicular bodies; the distal vacuole appears to form by coalescense of gamma-like vacuoles.The general sequence of encystment and germination resembles that found in other Chytridiomycetes, both saprophytic and parasitic. However, the distal vacuole and the vesicles in the germ tube appear to be parasitic adaptations and are shared by obligate intracellular parasites from several unrelated groups of zoosporic fungi.