Proteomic profiling of Botrytis cinerea conidial germination

Botrytis cinerea is one of the most relevant plant pathogenic fungi. The first step during its infection process is the germination of the conidia. Here, we report on the first proteome analysis during the germination of B. cinerea conidia, where 204 spots showed significant differences in their accumulation between ungerminated and germinated conidia by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and qPCR. The identified proteins were grouped by gene ontology revealing that the infective tools are mainly preformed inside the ungerminated conidia allowing a quick fungal development at the early stages of conidial germination. From 118 identified spots, several virulence factors have been identified while proteins, such as mannitol-1-phosphate dehydrogenase, 6,7-dimethyl-8-ribityllumazine synthase or uracil phosphoribosyltransferase, have been disclosed as a new potential virulence factors in botrytis whose role in pathogenicity needs to be studied to gain new insights about the role of these proteins as therapeutic targets and virulence factors.