Resistance of Botrytis cinerea to anilinopyrimidine fungicides: A novel ARMS-PCR method for the detection of Bcpos5 mutations and characterization of resistance using CRISPR/Cas9 editing.
Sofianos G, Petmezas A, Samaras A, Karaoglanidis G
Fungicide Resistance
Gray mold quietly destroys strawberry and tomato harvests — and the fungicide most growers spray to stop it is increasingly losing the battle because resistant strains are spreading with no survival disadvantage.
Gray mold is a fungal disease that ruins strawberries, tomatoes, and dozens of other crops. Growers have long relied on a class of fungicides called anilinopyrimidines to control it, but the fungus has evolved to shrug them off. Researchers built a quick genetic test to identify which resistant strains are in a field, then used the gene-editing tool CRISPR to prove the resistance mutations don't slow the fungus down at all — meaning resistant strains will keep spreading unchecked unless growers rotate to different fungicide classes.
Key Findings
Among 82 resistant Botrytis cinerea isolates from strawberry and tomato, 70.2% carried the L412F mutation, 8.3% the L412V mutation, and 4.7% the G408V mutation in the Bcpos5 gene.
CRISPR/Cas9-generated mutants carrying L412F and L412V showed no significant fitness costs — their mycelial growth, spore production, and plant infection ability matched the non-resistant reference strain.
A new T-ARMS-PCR test can rapidly and cheaply identify the three most common resistance mutations from a single DNA sample, validated against Sanger sequencing across 170 field isolates.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists developed a fast, cheap genetic test to detect fungicide-resistant strains of gray mold (Botrytis cinerea) and confirmed that the resistant mutations carry no fitness penalty, meaning resistant strains spread just as aggressively as susceptible ones.
Abstract Preview
Anilinopyrimidine (AP) fungicides have been widely used against Botrytis cinerea, yet their resistance mechanisms have only recently been clarified. Resistance is primarily linked to mutations G408...
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