Genetic characterization of grapevine-infecting Botrytis cinerea isolates from Argentina

Botrytis cinerea is an ascomycete with a high genetic diversity and complex population structure, as reported from several hosts and sites. However, nothing is known about its genetic diversity in Argentina.

The aim of this work is to estimate the genetic diversity of a local population of B. cinerea isolates obtained from grapevine in Argentina.

In this work, 35 strains that had been isolated from grapevines were genotyped for the presence of transposable elements and PCR-based RFLP molecular markers. The obtained results were compared with those from a large French population of the fungus, and used to perform a population genetics analysis using the Genepop software.

All the analysed isolates were classified as Group II (according to the most recent proposed classification) and showed a high degree of genetic diversity, with 14 different haplotypes. A significant difference in allele frequency was recorded between the local and French populations.

These comparisons between fungal populations, led to the detection of a high level of diversity and the differentiation between local and French groups of isolates. This was confirmed by an Fst value of 0.3332, which was higher than that reported for other pairwise comparisons of populations. This work constitutes the first report on the genetic diversity of B. cinerea isolates and their population structure in Argentina.