Figure 4.

rss1 is transcriptionally induced during the pathogenic development of U. maydis but has no impact on virulence.

A. Transcript levels of rss1 were determined by quantitative real time PCR after RNA isolation and cDNA synthesis from SG200 axenic culture and from different developmental stages. Constitutively expressed peptidyl‐prolyl isomerase (ppi) was used for normalization. Transcript levels were compared to those in axenic culture and levels in axenic culture were set to 1.0. Error bars depict standard deviation calculated from three independent biological replicates using infected areas from 12 plants each (n = 3). Significance was calculated with unpaired t test comparing expression values with those of axenic culture, * P ≤ 0.05.

B. Disease symptoms of maize seedlings were determined 12 days post infection with either U. maydis CL13 or three independent isolates of CL13Δrss1 according to Kamper et al. (2006). Disease symptom categories are colour‐coded and depicted on the right. Mean values from two independent infections are shown with the total number of infected plants above each column. No significant differences in disease symptoms were scored.