Temperature Effects on the Cryphonectria hypovirus 1 Accumulation and Recovery within Its Fungal Host, the Chestnut Blight Pathogen Cryphonectria parasitica

Biological control of Cryphonectria parasitica fungus, the causal agent of chestnut blight, by virus infection (hypovirulence) is an effective control strategy against chestnut blight in Europe and some parts of North America. The most studied mycovirus is the Cryphonectria hypovirus 1 (CHV1) type species of the Hypoviridae family. In this study, the CHV1 virus was studied within some highly infected British isolates of Cryphonectria parasitica, gained in the past through co-culture transmissions. The effects of six temperatures (5–30 °C, in 5 °C steps) on six infected isolates (three with viral strain E-5, and other three with viral strain L-18) and their respective negative non-infected controls, three isogenic virulent fungal isolates, were examined. Experiments were performed with the nine isolate types with three replicates on potato dextrose agar (PDA) with cellophane sheets per isolate and temperature. A recently developed rapid, specific, quantitative reverse transcription PCR (RT-qPCR) screening method was used. This enabled quantifying the concentration (nanograms per microliter or copy numbers) of the virus within each isolate repetition. The presence of the virus had a significant negative effect between 20 and 25 °C on the C. parasitica growth rate, which was anyway highly influenced by and positively correlated with the temperature. The temperature clearly determined the virus accumulation and its recovery from cold or heat, and the virus optimum temperature was estimated at 15–25 °C.