Ophiostoma himal-ulmi is a species of fungus in the family Ophiostomataceae. It is one of the causative agents of Dutch elm disease. It was first isolated around breeding galleries of scolytid beetles in the bark of Ulmus wallichiana (the Himalayan elm). This, together with the fact that it is endemic to the Himalayas, is the reason it is named himal-ulmi (‘of the Himalayan elm’; ulmi means ‘of the elm’).
It is outcrossing and heterothallic, with two sexual compatibility types: A and B, occurring in a near 1:1 ratio in nature. It also exhibits a distinctive colony type, an ability to produce synnemata on malt extract agar, production of perithecia with long necks, a very high level of cerato-ulmin toxin production in liquid shake cultures, and moderate to strong vascular wilt pathogenicity on Ulmus procera.
Further reading
- Crawford LJ, Osman TA, Booy FP, Coutts RH, Brasier CM, Buck KW (August 2006). "Molecular characterization of a partitivirus from Ophiostoma himal-ulmi". Virus Genes. 33 (1): 33–9. doi:10.1007/s11262-005-0028-6. PMID 16791416. S2CID 7774135.
- Stringer MA, Timberlake WE (February 1993). "Cerato-ulmin, a toxin involved in Dutch elm disease, is a fungal hydrophobin". The Plant Cell. 5 (2): 145–6. doi:10.1105/tpc.5.2.145. PMC 160257. PMID 8453298.
External links
References
Brasier, C.M.; Mehrotra, M.D. (1995). "Ophiostoma himal-ulmi sp. nov., a new species of Dutch elm disease fungus endemic to the Himalayas". Mycological Research. 99 (2): 205–215. doi:10.1016/S0953-7562(09)80887-3. ISSN 0953-7562. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩