''Microbotryum violaceum'', also known as the anther smut fungus, was formerly known as ''Ustilago violacea''. It is a basidiomycete obligate parasite of many

Caryophyllaceae Caryophyllaceae, commonly called the pink family or carnation family, is a family (biology), family of flowering plants. It is included in the dicotyledon order Caryophyllales in the APG III system, alongside 33 other families, including Amaranth ...

. But it has now separated into many species due to its host specificity.

Meiosis Meiosis () is a special type of cell division of germ cells in sexually-reproducing organisms that produces the gametes, the sperm or egg cells. It involves two rounds of division that ultimately result in four cells, each with only one c ...

in ''M. violaceum'' produces a tetrad of four

haploid Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell (biology), cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for Autosome, autosomal and Pseudoautosomal region, pseudoautosomal genes. Here ''sets of chromosomes'' refers to the num ...

meiotic products. Pairwise intra-tetrad mating can occur between these meiotic products.Hood ME, Antonovics J. Intratetrad mating, heterozygosity, and the maintenance of deleterious alleles in Microbotryum violaceum (=Ustilago violacea). Heredity (Edinb). 2000 Sep;85 Pt 3:231-41.

Examples

''Microbotryum violaceum'' can infect and sterilize the plant species ''

Silene latifolia ''Silene latifolia'', commonly known as white campion, is a dioecious flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae, native to most of Europe, Western Asia and northern Africa. It is a herbaceous annual, occasionally biennial or a short-lived ...

'' by acting like a

sexually transmitted infection A sexually transmitted infection (STI), also referred to as a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and the older term venereal disease (VD), is an infection that is Transmission (medicine), spread by Human sexual activity, sexual activity, e ...

References

External links

Microbotryum violaceum database

Index Fungorum

USDA ARS Fungal Database

Fungal plant pathogens and diseases Microbotryales Fungi described in 1797 Taxa named by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon Fungus species {{fungus-plant-disease-stub