Abstract
Botrytis cinerea is considered a model organism for the study of plant–pathogen interaction showing great genetic diversity and a high degree of morphological variability depending on environmental conditions. The use of new compounds and plant-based elicitors may trigger the expression of different B. cinerea genes, providing new sources of virulence factors. This work is focused on elucidating the phenotypic effect in B. cinerea of different carbon sources such as glucose, cellulose and tomato cell walls (TCW). Production of botrydial and dihydrobotrydial toxins was evaluated using thin-layer chromatography (TLC), proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-NMR) and mass spectrometry (UPLC-HRESIMS). Expression of the toxin biosynthesis gene BcBOT2 was followed using RT-qPCR. Results show an inhibition of the toxin biosynthesis pathway when TCW are present as a sole carbon source, suggesting that the toxin is only produced when rich molecules, like glucose, are available for fungal metabolism. That suggests a connection between gene expression of virulence factors and environmental conditions, where the silent genes can be induced by different culture conditions.
Highlights
Phytopathogenic fungi Botrytis cinerea is the causal agent of grey mould, which produces fungal disease in more than 200 commercially important crops around the world
For both lighting conditions of culture, the slowest mycelial growth was exhibited by Botrytis on minimal salt medium (MSM) Agar plus 1% GLU as a sole carbon source, which reached the smallest colony diameter measured, with a large area of the plate left unoccupied after 12 days; with the rest of the carbon sources assayed, the growth of the fungus continued until it reached the edge of the Petri dish
A weak pigment production was observed on MSM + tomato cell walls (TCW), whereas there was no pigment production when the fungus was cultured on MSM + carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC)
Summary
Phytopathogenic fungi Botrytis cinerea is the causal agent of grey mould, which produces fungal disease in more than 200 commercially important crops around the world. Output depends on the input [2] This approach is characteristic of several recent proteomics studies, for example, on cellulose [12], pectin-degrading enzymes [20] and on the early secretome [11] in B. cinerea. Most of these studies have been performed by introducing modifications to the assay and culture conditions, including the presence of different carbon sources and plant extracts. These substances, known as plant-based elicitor, act as elicitors that induce a virulent stage in the fungus and produce a dramatic change in the fungal response [13]. The use of new compounds and plant-based elicitors may trigger the expression of different and/or new sets of B. cinerea genes, providing new sources of potential virulence factors
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