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Dryad

Quantitative interactions: the disease outcome of Botrytis cinerea across the plant kingdom

Cite this dataset

Caseys, Celine et al. (2021). Quantitative interactions: the disease outcome of Botrytis cinerea across the plant kingdom [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.25338/B8Z91N

Abstract

Botrytis cinerea is a fungal pathogen that causes necrotic disease on more than a thousand known hosts widely spread across the plant kingdom. How B. cinerea interacts with such extensive host diversity remains largely unknown. To address this question, we generated an infectivity matrix of 98 strains of B. cinerea on 90 genotypes representing eight host plants. This experimental infectivity matrix revealed that the disease outcome is largely explained by variations in either the host resistance or pathogen virulence. However, the specific interactions between host and pathogen account for 16% of the disease outcome. Furthermore, the disease outcomes cluster among genotypes of a species but are independent of the relatedness between hosts. When analyzing the host specificity and virulence of B. cinerea, generalist strains are predominant. In this fungal necrotroph, specialization may happen by a loss in virulence on most hosts rather than an increase of virulence on a specific host. To uncover the genetic architecture of Botrytis host specificity and virulence, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) was performed and revealed up to 1492 genes of interest. The genetic architecture of these traits is widespread across B. cinerea genome. The complexity of the disease outcome might be explained by hundreds of functionally diverse genes putatively involved in adjusting the infection to diverse hosts.

 

Methods

This study is based on a collection of 98 strains of Botrytis cinerea that samples fourteen plant hosts and to a smaller degree geographical origins. We generated an infectivity matrix of 98 strains of B. cinerea on 90 genotypes representing eight host plants, resulting in a dataset of 51,920 visible lesions at 72hpi. Least-square means and linear modeling was applied. GWAS was performed to assess the genetic architecture in Botrytis.

Usage notes

Accession list = all plant genotypes.

isolate host origin = list of isolates with info.

SNP data = SNP matrix for B. cinerea strains used for GWAS.

LSmean files = least-square means of lesion area in either the column or row format to do plotting and linear modeling.

Full meta data = all lesion area data.

Lmer = full results of the linear mixed models for each of the 7 crops.

Rnotebook = explanation on the R pipelines and associated R codes.

 

Funding

National Science Foundation, Award: IOS1339125

National Science Foundation, Award: IOS1021861