Fig 5.

Melanin content of individual lines from Saprolegnia parasitica treated with dsRNA. Sporulating mycelium from all individual lines treated with dsRNA was collected and melanin content was determined using a spectrophotometric assay as described in Material and Methods section. The concentration was determined extrapolating the value through a standard curve from known concentrations of synthetic melanin. (A) Standard curve (B) melanin extrapolated concentration on individual lines treated with gfp-dsRNA and SpTyr-dsRNA. SpTyr-dsRNA individual lines Tyr1 to Tyr5 showed the lowest tyrosinase activity, corresponding to the highest silencing level achieved and to the lowest tyrosinase activity. Note that the same individual lines used to assess the gene expression level (Fig 3) and enzyme activity (Fig 4) were used for melanin content determination. The error bars represent the standard error within technical triplicates.