Postharvest Anthracnose of Persimmon Fruit Caused by Colletotrichum gloeosporioides First Reported in Spain.

Commercial production area and yield of sweet persimmon (Diospyros kaki L.) in Spain has doubled in the last 10 years to more than 5,000 ha and 50,000 tons, respectively, mainly because of the high quality and consumer demand for the Valencian autochthonous cultivar 'Rojo Brillante' in European markets. In a recent survey of decay on 'Rojo Brillante' persimmons stored in commercial packinghouses, fruit were found with disease symptoms of firm brown to dark brown round spots scattered on the fruit cheeks. Isolation of the potential causal agent (isolate IVIA QCV-2) was performed by disinfecting the surface of symptomatic fruit with alcohol, aseptically cutting pieces of infected peel tissue, and then plating them onto potato dextrose agar (PDA). The fungus grew fast, covering the entire plate surface (9 mm diameter) after 7 to 10 days of incubation at 25°C with cottony grayish mycelium that darkened with time. Masses of salmon-colored conidia were apparent in the center of some colonies. Conidia were one-celled, hyaline, aseptate, ovoid to oblong with rounded or obtuse ends, and 11.5 to 15.5 × 3.0 to 6.5 µm (n = 50). The identification of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides (Penz.) Penz. & Sacc. [synonym: Vermicularia gloeosporioides Penz.; teleomorph: Glomerella cingulata (Stoneman) Spauld. & H. Schrenk] was performed at the Instituto Valenciano de Microbiología (IVAMI, Bétera, Valencia, Spain) by macro and micro morphological observations and confirmed with the amplification and subsequent sequencing of the ribosomal DNA regions 5.8S-ITS2-28S, using the primers ITS3 and ITS4 (4). A representative nucleotide sequence was deposited in GenBank (Accession No. KC113600) and a BLAST search showed 99% identity with the strain C1254.3 of C. gloeosporioides (JX010153) (3). To fulfill Koch's postulates, selected healthy 'Rojo Brillante' persimmons were surface sterilized by dipping them for 2 min in a 0.5% sodium hypochlorite aqueous solution and thoroughly rinsing with fresh water. Mycelial plugs (5-mm diameter) from the edge of 7-day old colonies of isolate IVIA QCV-2 grown on PDA at 25°C were aseptically transferred to skin wounds (one plug per fruit). Wounded but not inoculated fruit were used as controls. Persimmons were placed in three humid chambers that each contained four fruit and incubated at 20°C for up to 21 days. The experiment was repeated twice. While inoculated persimmons developed anthracnose disease in all cases and C. gloeosporioides was consistently reisolated from these fruit, no decay was observed on control fruit. To our knowledge, this is the first report of C. gloeosporioides causing postharvest persimmon fruit rot in Spain. Persimmon anthracnose caused by this pathogen is well known in Asian countries such as China and Korea (1). This disease was also reported in Brazil (2). References: (1) J. H. Lee et al. Plant Pathol. J. 20:247, 2004. (2) M. A. S. Mendes et al. Fungos em Plants no Brasil. Embrapa-SPI/Embrapa-Cenargen, Brasilia, Brazil, 1998. (3) B. S. Weir et al. Stud. Mycol. 73:115, 2012. (4) T. J. White et al. Page 315 in: PCR Protocols: A Guide to Methods and Applications. Academic Press Inc., San Diego, CA, 1990.

Bronquiolitis en el primer mes de vida / Bronchiolitis in the first month of life

Objetivo: Analizar la hospitalización por bronquiolitis durante el primer mes de vida y sus características clínico epidemiológicas. Método: Estudio descriptivo y analítico de los casos de bronquiolitis con edad neonatal (0-30 días), ingresados en nuestro hospital desde 1997 a 2000. Se estudiaron las características epidemiológicas y clínicas, comparándose la necesidad de unidad de cuidados intensivos neonatales (UCIN) y la mortalidad con otra población de lactantes mayores con bronquiolitis. Resultados: Se hospitalizaron 108 niños (15,5 por ciento de las 695 bronquiolitis hospitalizadas). Nacieron intrahospitalarios 93 (8,5 por mil). El 10,1 por ciento del total presentaron bajo peso al nacimiento y el 9,2 por ciento fueron pretérminos. En el 87 por ciento se analizó la presencia de virus respiratorio sincitial (VRS) en moco nasal (positivo: 63,8 por ciento). Se consideraron graves el 21,2 por ciento, moderados: 58,3 por ciento y leves: 20,3 por ciento, precisaron UCIN el 19,4 por ciento, con diferencia significativa con los lactantes de más edad (9,8 por ciento). La estancia media fue de 10 días. No hubo diferencias en la mortalidad. La tasa de infección nosocomial, en la sala de Neonatología para los VRS positivos, fue del 4 por ciento. Conclusiones: La proporción de bronquiolitis para esta edad ha sido mayor que la publicada. Precisaron UCIN en mayor proporción que los lactantes mayores, si bien no se han producido fallecimientos. Su ingreso en la sala neonatal, no ha presentado complicaciones comial) 5. Estadísticamente las variables cuantitativas se han descrito con media y desviación estándar y las variables cualitativas con proporción y se han comparado por el test de Chi2. Significación estadística < 0,05. (AU)