Towards Biological Control of Aspergillus carbonarius and Botrytis cinerea in Grapevine Berries and Transcriptomic Changes of Genes Encoding Pathogenesis-Related (PR) Proteins.

Danai Gkizi,Sotirios E Tjamos,Eirini G Poulaki

doi:10.3390/plants10050970

Danai Gkizi, Sotirios E Tjamos + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10050970

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Journal: Plants (Basel, Switzerland)	Publication Date: May 13, 2021
Citations: 7	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Agricultural University of Athens

Abstract

Grapevine bunch rot, caused by Botrytis cinerea and Aspergillus carbonarius, causes important economic losses every year in grape production. In the present study, we examined the plant protective activity of the biological control agents, Paenibacillus alvei K165, Blastobotrys sp. FP12 and Arthrobacter sp. FP15 against B. cinerea and A. carbonarius on grapes. The in vitro experiments showed that strain K165 significantly reduced the growth of both fungi, while FP15 restricted the growth of A. carbonarius and FP12 was ineffective. Following the in vitro experiments, we conducted in planta experiments on grape berries. It was shown that K165, FP12 and FP15 reduced A. carbonarius rot severity by 81%, 57% and 37%, respectively, compared to the control, whereas, in the case of B. cinerea, the only protective treatment was that with K165, which reduced rot by 75%. The transcriptomic analysis of the genes encoding the pathogenesis-related proteins PR2, PR3, PR4 and PR5 indicates the activation of multiple defense responses involved in the biocontrol activity of the examined biocontrol agents.

Highlights

Bunch rot of grape berries is caused by several pathogens such as Botrytis cinerea, several species of Aspergillus, Penicillium and Colletotrichum [1]; it is held that B. cinerea and A. carbonarius are the most significant
It is evident that the biocontrol traits of K165 are quite interesting, since its application resulted in a significant plant protection, up to 86%, against B. cinerea and A. carbonarius
Our results suggest that K165 produces deleterious compounds for the growth of A. carbonarius and B. cinerea and induces the plant defense mechanisms, as has been shown in previous studies against other pathogens

Summary

Introduction

Bunch rot of grape berries is caused by several pathogens such as Botrytis cinerea, several species of Aspergillus, Penicillium and Colletotrichum [1]; it is held that B. cinerea and A. carbonarius are the most significant. A synergistic role of PR3 and PR5 with PR2 at the later stages of the infection cannot be excluded, since the highest expression levels of PR3 and PR5 were detected in the K165/B. cinerea treatment, at 3 dpi (Figure 4b,d). FP15 [15,17,18,19], we investigated their capacity to protect grape berries against A. carbonarius and B. cinerea, along with their plant defense triggering activity.

Results

Conclusion