Virulence factors of the fungus Verticillium albo-atrum

Abstract

The fungus Verticillium albo-atrum is an important plant pathogen, capable of infecting several hundred plant species and causing considerable agricultural losses. Pathogenesys mechanisms of this fungus are poorly understood, but the recent sequencing of its genome offers good foresight for conducting research on this topic. We have surveyed accessible knowledge on known pathogenesis related fungal genes and conducted a search of gene homologs of these genes in the genome of V. albo-atrum using BLAST. From retrieved data, we tried to form a possible explanation for the high virulence of this important pathogenic fungus.