The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae stimulates phytoalexin accumulation and is a potential agent for biological control of fungal diseases in sorghum. The present investigation establishes the initial steps to purify elicitor molecules of phytoalexins in sorghum from S. cerevisiae. These molecules are extracted using heat and remain in solution after ethanol precipitation. They are active even after autoclaving, thus showing to be thermostable. A correlation between phytoalexin accumulation in mesocotyls and increasing amounts of protein on elicitor samples was observed.
elicitor; yeast; defense response