Abstract
The current devastating epidemics of Dutch elm disease in Europe, Southwest Asia and North America are caused by the emergence and spread of a highly pathogenic, aggressive sub-group of the fungus Ophiostoma (= Ceratocystis) ulmi (Buisman) Nannf, which is rapidly replacing the 'old' non-aggressive sub-group, believed to be responsible for the milder disease epidemics earlier in the century1. There are no effective methods for controlling the spread of the disease nationally, but the discovery of cytoplasmically transmissible factors (d-factors) which cause debilitating diseases in both aggressive and non-aggressive isolates of O. ulmi has opened up the possibility of biological control2–4. One of these, the d2-factor, is associated with specific segments of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)5. We now report that the dsRNA segments in d2-infected isolates copurify with the mitochondria and that mitochondria isolated from such diseased isolates are deficient in cytochrome aa3.
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Rogers, H., Buck, K. & Brasier, C. A mitochondrial target for double-stranded RNA in diseased isolates of the fungus that causes Dutch elm disease. Nature 329, 558–560 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1038/329558a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/329558a0
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