Figure 5.

Detached roots pathogenicity assay quantitative real-time PCR results: The experiment is described in Figure 4. The qPCR method used is very sensitive, and some of the measurements (repeats) resulted in zero values because of an objective difficulty in achieving high and uniform inoculation with this particular pathogen Israeli strains. Therefore, two measures to describe the results were used: pathogen colonization degree (mean relative value) and incidence (percentages of infected plants that had positive detection using the qPCR method). (A) Pathogen colonization degree: M. maydis relative DNA (Mm) levels normalized to the housekeeping gene cytochrome c oxidase (Cox) DNA. (B) Incidence: rate of infected plants (with M. maydis DNA inside their tissues) in percentage, identified by the qPCR. Controls—noninfected plants tested in these experiments (all had zero levels of M. maydis relative DNA). Values represent the average of five replications ± standard error.