Figure 5. Gnt2 mutants show increased sensitivity to stress conditions.

(A) Fungal colonies from the wild type (wt), the Δgnt2 mutant and the complemented cΔgnt2 strains grown for 3-4 days at 28 °C on SM plates containing Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate (SDS) or Calcofluor white (CFW), or on SM plates under heat stress conditions (120 h at 35 °C). The number of inoculated spores is indicated. (B) Alcian Blue binding affinity of F. oxysporum wild type (wt), Δgnt2 mutant and cΔgnt2 complemented strains. Microconidial suspensions (5 x 10⁸ mL^-1) from the indicated strains were added to an Alcian Blue containing suspension (0.025% w/v), incubated 20 min at RT, and centrifuged. The ability to bind the dye was determined by measuring the absorbance at 620 nm of the remaining supernatant after centrifugation, and represented as % of Alcian Blue bound to the cells. Photographs above the diagram show the remaining colour in the supernatants of the different strains. (C) Sensitivity of F. oxysporum wild type (wt), Δgnt2 mutant and cΔgnt2 complemented strains to the treatment with 50 mg mL^-1 Glucanex lytic enzyme. The graph shows the number of protoplasts released from each strain during incubation for the indicated time period in min. Bars indicate the standard error from three independent experiments.