The phytopathogenic ascomycete Botrytis cinerea produces several secondary metabolites that have biotechnical significance and has been particularly used for S-(+)-abscisic acid production at the industrial scale. To manipulate the expression levels of specific secondary metabolite biosynthetic genes of B. cinerea with Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation system, two expression vec...

Crude cell-free preparations of Botrytis cinerea were found to oxidize straight-chain primary alcohols (except methanol), aromatic primary alcohols, and unsaturated primary alcohols. The resulting products were the corresponding aldehydes and an equal molar quantity of hydrogen peroxide.

Botrytis cinerea is a necrotrophic pathogen causing a major problem in the export and post-harvest of strawberries. Inappropriate use of fungicides leads to resistance among fungal pathogens. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the sensitivity of B. cinerea to various classes of fungicide and to determine the effectiveness of different concentrations of commonly used fungicides. We thus eval...

This study demonstrates that the isoprenoid farnesol produces a toxic effect on the phytopathogenic fungus Botrytis cinerea in solid and liquid media. In solid media farnesol retarded 72 h the beginning of mycelial growth. Also, it was demonstrated that the toxic effect is due to farnesol triggers apoptosis in B. cinerea because ROS accumulation, DNA fragmentation and phosphatidylserine externa...

Necrotrophic fungi are unable to occupy living plant cells. How such pathogens survive first contact with living host tissue and initiate infection is therefore unclear. Here, we show that the necrotrophic grey mold fungus Botrytis cinerea undergoes massive apoptotic-like programmed cell death (PCD) following germination on the host plant. Manipulation of an anti-apoptotic gene BcBIR1 modified ...

Natural geranyl compounds are known to exhibit important biological activities. In this work a series of geranylphenols were synthesized to evaluate their effect on the mycelial growth of Botrytis cinerea. Geranyl derivatives were synthesized by direct geranylation reactions between the corresponding phenol derivatives and geraniol, using BF3.OEt2 as catalyst and AgNO3 as secondary catalyst. Pr...