Técnicas para el estudio de la interacción caña de azúcar - Sporisorium scitamineum

The main goal of this work was to review the tools and laboratory techniques employed to study the interaction of sugarcane and Sporisorium scitamineum (Syd.) M. Piepe nbr., M. Stoll & F. Oberw. (Ustilago scitaminea Sydow), smut’s causal agent. The sugarcane resistance to this disease is determined by several factors, among them the activation of several resistance proteins, and other related genes. This interaction has been studied with different tools, such as histological techniques for assessing the disruptions at the cellular level caused by fungus penetration; the biochemical ones used to detect changes in the composition of several antimicrobial substances, the histochemistry useful to stain in situ specific proteins, and molecular biology, which provides us with valuable tools to discover the activation or suppression of transcripts during the interaction. These approaches contribute to the better understandings of plant defense responses and to create molecular bases for genetic improvement to be applied as indicator in molecular assisted programs.