Simple quantification of in planta fungal biomass

An accurate assessment of the disease resistance status of plants to fungal pathogens is an essential requirement for the development of resistant crop plants. Many disease resistance phenotypes are partial rather than obvious immunity and are frequently scored using subjective qualitative estimates of pathogen development or plant disease symptoms. Here we report a method for the accurate comparison of total fungal biomass in plant tissues. This method, called the WAC assay, is based upon the specific binding of the plant lectin wheat germ agglutinin to fungal chitin. The assay is simple, high-throughput, and sensitive enough to discriminate between single Puccinia graminis f.sp tritici infection sites on a wheat leaf segment. It greatly lends itself to replication as large volumes of tissue can be pooled from independent experiments and assayed to provide truly representative quantification, or, alternatively, fungal growth on a single, small leaf segment can be quantified. In addition, as the assay is based upon a microscopic technique, pathogen infection sites can also be examined at high magnification prior to quantification if desired and average infection site areas are determined. Previously, we have demonstrated the application of the WAC assay for quantifying the growth of several different pathogen species in both glasshouse grown material and large-scale field plots. Details of this method are provided within.