Description
The cell wall is among the first plant structures encountered by necrotrophic fungal pathogens, such as Botrytis cinerea. The composition of plant cell walls varies depending on the species, type of cell or tissue, and stage of development. Cell walls are important reservoirs of energy-rich sugars for pathogens, but also are barriers that impair colonization of host tissues. Growing fungal hyphae secrete enzymes that hydrolyze cell wall polysaccharides. Degradation of wall polysaccharides provides nutrients for the pathogen and improves the access of secreted Botrytis enzymes to all host cell wall targets and cytoplasmic constituents. Destruction of host cell walls results in tissue maceration, a hallmark of diseases caused by Botrytis. The Botrytis genome encodes 1,155 predicted carbohydrate-active enzyme (CAZy) genes; products of 275 are potentially secreted. Transcriptome sequencing identified Botrytis CAZy genes expressed during infections of lettuce leaves, ripe tomato fruit and grape berries. On all three hosts, Botrytis expresses a common group of 229 predicted CAZy genes including 28 pectin-modifying enzymes, 21 hemicellulose-modifying proteins, 18 enzymes targeting pectin and hemicellulose side-branches, and 16 enzymes that may degrade cellulose. Pectin polysaccharides are abundant in grape and tomato cell walls, but lettuce leaf walls are predominantly hemicelluloses and cellulose. These results suggest that Botrytis targets similar wall polysaccharide networks; e.g., pectins, on leaves and fruit, but also attacks unique host wall polysaccharide substrates The diversity of the Botrytis CAZy proteins may be partly responsible for its wide host range. Overall design: 4 biological replicates consisting of groups of infected berries from different plants. The experimental design consists of 4 biological replicates sequenced with RNAseq, each replicate corresponded to independent pools of 10-15 berries harvested from adjacent grapevines.