Fig. 1: Plant enhances mycovirus transmission between VIC S. sclerotiorum strains.

A Colony morphology of S. sclerotiorum strains Ep-1PN (EP), Ep-1PNA367 (A367), 1980m, SG9, and SCH941A1 (941A1) at 7 dpi (upper panel), and co-cultures of the HAVs-infected hypovirulent strain Ep-1PN as donor and the other four HAVs-free virulent strains as recipients for 5 dpi (lower panel) on PDA at 20 °C. Ep-1PN is compatible with its single-ascospore derivative Ep-1PNA367, and incompatible with the other three strains. B Virulence assay of Ep-1PNA367, 1980m, SG9, and SCH941A1 (upper panel), and their co-inoculations with Ep-1PN (lower panel) on living oilseed rape plants (72 hpi, 20 °C). The white bar represents 1 cm. C Diameters of lesions caused by Ep-1PN, Ep-1PNA367, 1980m, SG9, and SCH941A1 alone, and following co-inoculation of those strains with Ep-1PN on living oilseed rape plants (72 hpi, 20 °C), n = 76 biologically independent samples. D Analysis of diameters of lesions caused by co-inoculation of Ep-1PN with either Ep-1PNA367 or 1980m using the Bland-Altman method, illustrating that only 6.8% (5/74) of lesion size values were outside the 95% consistency limit (95% limits of agreement) of the maximum error range. E Horizontal transmission efficiency of two mycoviruses, SsDRV and SsRVL, from Ep-1PN to 1980m on PDA, living oilseed rape plants, and oilseed rape leaves previously stored in −80 °C (n = 3 and N = 40; n = 3 indicates that we conducted three independent biological repeats and N = 40 indicates that we performed 40 co-cultures for each biological repeat, with each recipient strain from the 40 co-cultures sub-cultured on plates containing hygromycin or neomycin and used to measure mycovirus transmission efficiency). Data are presented as mean ± SD, two-tailed Student’s t test. ****p < 0.0001. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.