Mycologists and Virologists Align: Proposing <i>Botrytis cinerea</i> for Global Mycovirus Studies
Mahmoud E. Khalifa,
María A. Ayllón,
Lorena Rodriguez Coy,
Kim M. Plummer,
Anthony R. Gendall,
Kar Mun Chooi,
Jan A.L. van Kan,
Robin M. MacDiarmid
Affiliations
Mahmoud E. Khalifa
Botany and Microbiology Department, Faculty of Science, Damietta University, Damietta 34517, Egypt
María A. Ayllón
Centro de Biotecnología y Genómica de Plantas, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM)/Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA/CSIC), Pozuelo de Alarcón, 28223 Madrid, Spain
Lorena Rodriguez Coy
La Trobe Institute for Sustainable Agriculture and Food (LISAF), Department of Animal, Plant and Soil Sciences, School of Agriculture, Biomedicine and Environment, La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC 3086, Australia
Kim M. Plummer
La Trobe Institute for Sustainable Agriculture and Food (LISAF), Department of Animal, Plant and Soil Sciences, School of Agriculture, Biomedicine and Environment, La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC 3086, Australia
Anthony R. Gendall
La Trobe Institute for Sustainable Agriculture and Food (LISAF), Department of Animal, Plant and Soil Sciences, School of Agriculture, Biomedicine and Environment, La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC 3086, Australia
Kar Mun Chooi
The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Limited, Auckland 1025, New Zealand
Jan A.L. van Kan
Laboratory of Phytopathology, Wageningen University, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands
Robin M. MacDiarmid
The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Limited, Auckland 1025, New Zealand
Mycoviruses are highly genetically diverse and can significantly change their fungal host’s phenotype, yet they are generally under-described in genotypic and biological studies. We propose Botrytis cinerea as a model mycovirus system in which to develop a deeper understanding of mycovirus epidemiology including diversity, impact, and the associated cellular biology of the host and virus interaction. Over 100 mycoviruses have been described in this fungal host. B. cinerea is an ideal model fungus for mycovirology as it has highly tractable characteristics—it is easy to culture, has a worldwide distribution, infects a wide range of host plants, can be transformed and gene-edited, and has an existing depth of biological resources including annotated genomes, transcriptomes, and isolates with gene knockouts. Focusing on a model system for mycoviruses will enable the research community to address deep research questions that cannot be answered in a non-systematic manner. Since B. cinerea is a major plant pathogen, new insights may have immediate utility as well as creating new knowledge that complements and extends the knowledge of mycovirus interactions in other fungi, alone or with their respective plant hosts. In this review, we set out some of the critical steps required to develop B. cinerea as a model mycovirus system and how this may be used in the future.
