Rhodonia placenta, often used as a model fungus to represent brown rot fungi, uses a two-stepped degradation mechanism to degrade wood. Regarding the overcoming of wood protection systems the initial degradation phase seems to be the crucial point. A new laboratory test enables the separation of the non-enzymatic oxidative and the enzymatic degradation phases, which has previously been proven challenging. In this study this new method was used to investigate gene expression of ten genes, presumably involved in non-enzymatic oxidative degradation. Therefore, R. placenta was grown on untreated and to three different levels acetylated Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) samples. Gene expression was analyzed via qPCR. Results showed a groupwise upregulation of genes involved in the non-enzymatic oxidative degradation phase, according to increasing weight percentage gain (WPG). However, not all genes thought to be involved in initial brown-rot decay showed an upregulation.

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