TOTAL PHENOL CONTENT AND PHENOL OXIDIZING ENZYMES ACTIVITIES IN DETACHED COTTON ROOTS INOCULATED WITH VERTICILLIUM DAHLIAE KLEB

The detached cotton roots of resistant and susceptible cultivars, inoculated with a virulent strain of Verticillium dahliae, responded by peroxidase and phenol oxidase at the initial stage of infection (prepenetration and penetration). Enzymes activation degree did not correlate with resistance.
The phenols were accumulated in the vascular system, on the cell walls on external cell layers and especially on the root surface of the infected roots of both varieties, however the total phenol content increased only in the resistant roots.
The phenols and their oxidases were located in the roots similarly.
Host cortex colonization by fungus was some more intensive in the susceptible cotton roots.
The results suggest the role of phenols and their oxidation products in both specific and non-specific defence reactions.
The morphophysiological reactions of the detached cotton roots to the infection manifest essential similarity to those of the roots of whole plants.

International Symposium on Natural Phenols in Plant Resistance

T.A. Vlassova

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1994.381.36