![]() ![]() This technique allows scientists to reconstruct the battlefield between the chocolate tree and the fungus in unprecedented detail, by providing a readout of genes that are affected in the plant and the fungus during the course of witches' broom disease. perniciosa fungus and the chocolate tree. ![]() The team used a technique known as dual RNA-seq analysis to monitor the interaction between the M. A study to be published in The Plant Cell represents the culmination of their research to date. In 2000, a team of scientists led by Gonçalo Pereira of the Universidade Estadual de Campinas in Brazil initiated the Witches' Broom Genome Project, with the long-term aim of developing a cure for witches' broom disease. There is no known cure for this devastating disease. The fungus then completes its lifecycle by once again giving rise to clusters of spore-producing mushrooms. Two to three months after infection, the brooms turn brown and begin to perish. Because infected trees develop bizarre green outgrowths that resemble brooms, the disease is known as witches' broom disease. These mushrooms are filled with millions of spores that, once released, can enter a susceptible chocolate tree through surface wounds and tiny gaps called stomata and slowly kill the tree. At one stage of its lifecycle, Moniliophthora perniciosa takes on the form of enchanting pink mushrooms that seem to come straight from a fairytale (see picture). ![]()
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