Genetic analysis reveals unprecedented diversity of a globally-important plant pathogenic genus

Abstract

Genus Botrytis contains approximately 35 species, many of which are economically-important and globally-distributed plant pathogens which collectively infect over 1,400 plant species. Recent efforts to genetically characterize genus Botrytis have revealed new species on diverse host crops around the world. In this study, surveys and subsequent genetic analysis of the glyceraldehyde-3-phosate dehydrogenase ( G3PDH ), heat-shock protein 60 ( HSP60 ), DNA-dependent RNA polymerase subunit II ( RPB2 ), and necrosis and ethylene-inducing proteins 1 and 2 ( NEP1 and NEP2 ) genes indicated that Botrytis isolates collected from peony fields in the United States contained more species diversity than ever before reported on a single host, including up to 10 potentially novel species. Together, up to 16 different phylogenetic species were found in association with peonies in the Pacific Northwest, which is over a third of the total number of species that are currently named. Furthermore, species were found on peonies in Alaska that have been described on other host plants in different parts of the world, indicating a wider geographic and host distribution than previously thought. Lastly, some isolates found on peony share sequence similarity with unnamed species found living as endophytes in weedy hosts, suggesting that the isolates found on peony have flexible lifestyles as recently discovered in the genus. Selected pathogenicity, growth, and morphological characteristics of the putatively new Botrytis species were also assessed to provide a basis for future formal description of the isolates as new species.

Dynamics in Secondary Metabolite Gene Clusters in Otherwise Highly Syntenic and Stable Genomes in the Fungal GenusBotrytis

“…2019 ), the present study, focusing on eight species from clade 2 of the genus, brings the number of Botrytis genome sequences to 16. This represents about half of the currently recognized species in the genus, though a recent study ( Garfinkel et al. 2019 ) identified at least 15 phylogenetically distinct, new taxa sampled from Paeonia in Alaska, which remain to be described and named.…”

“…There are two exceptions in the pattern of specialized host–pathogen relationships within the genus: as many as eight Botrytis species can infect onion ( Allium cepa ) or other Allium species ( Staats et al. 2005 ), and a recent study reported as many as 15 previously unknown, phylogenetically distinct Botrytis taxa sampled from peony in Alaska ( Garfinkel et al. 2019 ).…”

Peeling the onion : Unravelling the biology of fungal onion pathogens causing leaf blight,neck rot and white rot

“…Following the efforts to sequence B. cinerea isolate B05.10 and nine other Botrytis species mainly infecting flower bulb crops (Valero-Jiménez et al 2019), the present study, focusing on eight species from clade 2 of the genus, brings the number of Botrytis genome sequences to 16. This represents about half of the currently recognized species in the genus, though a recent study (Garfinkel et al 2019) identified at least 15 phylogenetically distinct, new taxa sampled from Paeonia in Alaska, which remain to be described and named. There is thus far one single fungal genus, that is, Verticillium, for which the genomes of all recognized species have been sequenced (Shi-Kunne et al 2018).…”

“…The Ascomycete genus Botrytis consists of approximately 35 species that are known as necrotrophic plant pathogens (Garfinkel et al 2019;Hyde et al 2014). The most wellknown and extensively studied model species is B. cinerea, which is able to infect over 1400 plant species (Elad et al 2016).…”

“…There are two exceptions in the pattern of specialized host-pathogen relationships within the genus: as many as eight Botrytis species can infect onion (Allium cepa) or other Allium species (Staats et al 2005), and a recent study reported as many as 15 previously unknown, phylogenetically distinct Botrytis taxa sampled from peony in Alaska (Garfinkel et al 2019). Phylogenetic analysis separated the genus Botrytis into two distinct clades, and Botrytis species that infect Allium are widely dispersed throughout the largest clade (Garfinkel et al 2019;Hyde et al 2014;Staats et al 2005). Their closest relatives are often pathogenic on hosts that are phylogenetically distant from Allium.…”