FIGURE 5.

Impairment of cell wall integrity. A, effect of the cell wall inhibitor Congo red (CR) on fungal growth. Two microliters of 10-fold serial dilutions of spore suspensions (5 × 10⁷ conidia/ml) were inoculated on PDA plates with or without Congo red and incubated at 28 °C for 72 h. B, germination rates of the WT and mutants in SDB with or without Congo red (50 μg/ml) 24 h post-inoculation. Error bars represent S.E. from three replicates. C, chitin quantification. Each bar represents the mean ± S.E. from two independent experiments, and each treatment had three replicates. *, p < 0.05. D, fluorescence lectin staining. Conidia of the WT and mutants were germinated in SDB for 12 h before staining with G. simplicifolia lectin II (GSII), G. nivalis lectin (GNL), and concanavalin A (ConA). Scale bar = 5 μm.