<Emphasis Type=Italic>Boletus kermesinus</Emphasis>, a new species of <Emphasis Type=Italic>Boletus</Emphasis> section <Emphasis Type=Italic>Luridi</Emphasis> from central Honshu,Japan

Boletus kermesinus, a new species of Boletus section Luridi, is fully described and illustrated based on the materials collected in subalpine coniferous forests of central Honshu, Japan. It has distinctive features of dark-red basidiomata having distinct viscidity in the pileus surface, usually unchanging flesh, discolorous red pores, and an entirely reticulate stipe becoming coarsely lacerate-rimose with age.     

Manifestation of salt tolerance of <Emphasis Type=Italic>Spirulina platensis</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type=Italic>Spirulina maxima</Emphasis> cyanobacteria of the genus <Emphasis Type=Italic>Arthrospira (Spirulina)</Emphasis>

The salt tolerance of two representatives of genus Spirulina (Arthrospira) Spirulina platensis and Spirulina maxima has been investigated. They both are the wide-spread objects of photobiotechnology and it has been shown that the content of 5–15 % sea-water in medium has not caused the decreasing of biomass yield more than 15–20% as compared with control. The further decreasing of biomass was proportionate to sea-water content in medium. The investigation of reactivity of native (intravital) exometabolites secreted into cultural medium has showed that the sea-water content influence the oxidative activity (OA) of exometabolites and hour’s rhythmics.     

New allele of the <Emphasis Type=Italic>COCHLEATA</Emphasis> gene in pea <Emphasis Type=Italic>Pisum sativum</Emphasis> L.

Analysis with the polymerase chain reaction showed that the Khlorofill-4 pea Pisum sativum chlorophyll-deficient mutant with reduced stipules has an altered structure of the COCHLEATA (COCH) gene, carrying a new mutant COCH allele. The phenotype of the mutant was described in comparison with another form having reduced stipules (stipules reduced) and the control. Leaves of the coch mutant are smaller and have other proportions than in the control; stipules are absent from leaves of the first nodes and are narrow, bandlike, or spoonlike at later ontogenetic stages. It was concluded that the cell number in the stipule epidermis is reduced in the st and coch mutants compared to the wild type.     

<Emphasis Type=Italic>Agrobacterium tumefaciens</Emphasis>-mediated transformation of the plant pathogenic fungus <Emphasis Type=Italic>Rosellinia necatrix</Emphasis>

Rosellinia necatrix is a soil-borne root pathogen affecting a wide range of commercially important plant species. The mycelium of R. necatrix was transformed to hygromycin B resistance by an Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation system using a binary plasmid vector containing the hygromycin B phosphotransferase (hph) gene controlled by the heterologous fungal Aspergillus nidulans P-gpd (glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase) promoter and the trpC terminator. Co-cultivation of R. necatrix strain W1015 and A. tumefaciens strain AGL-1 at 25°C using the binary vector pAN26-CB1300, which contained the hygromycin B resistance cassette based on pAN26 and pCAMBIA1300, resulted in high frequencies of transformation. The presence of the hph gene in the transformants was detected by PCR, and single-copy integration of the marker gene was demonstrated by Southern b lot analy s is. This report of an Agrobacterium-mediated transformation method should allow the development of T-DNA tagging as a system for insertional mutagenesis in R. necatrix and provide a simple and reliable method for genetic manipulation.     

Discovery of <Emphasis Type=Italic>Ophiostoma tsotsi</Emphasis> on <Emphasis Type=Italic>Eucalyptus</Emphasis> wood chips in China

Ophiostoma species such as O. quercus are the most frequent causal agents of sapstain of freshly felled hardwood timber and pulpwood. Many species are regarded as economically important agents of wood degradation. The aim of this study was to identify a collection of Ophiostoma isolates, resembling O. quercus, found on stained Eucalyptus pulpwood chips in China. DNA sequences of the internal transcribed spacer regions, including the 5.8S region, of the ribosomal DNA, and parts of the β-tubulin and elongation factor-1α genes, revealed that the isolates were not O. quercus. Surprisingly, they represented O. tsotsi, a wound-infesting fungus recently described from hardwoods in Africa. In addition, sequence data from an isolate from agarwood in Vietnam, identified in a previous study as belonging to an unknown Pesotum species, were also shown to represent O. tsotsi. A high level of genetic variability was observed among isolates of both O. quercus and O. tsotsi. This was unexpected and suggests that both species have been present in Asia for a significant amount of time.