ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Pathogen Interactions
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1610287
This article is part of the Research TopicInterplay of Plant Volatiles in Enhancing Immunity and Sustainable Pest ManagementView all 12 articles
Identification and genome insights into Pyrenochaeta nobilis, a novel endophytic fungus isolated from Astragalus membranaceus with gray mold-control activity
Provisionally accepted
- Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Harbin, China
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Gray mold, caused by the necrotrophic fungus Botrytis cinerea, thrives under low temperature and high humidity conditions. To discover novel biocontrol resources against B. cinerea, endophytic fungi were isolated from wild medicinal plants indigenous to the southern foothills of the Daxing'an Mountains in China. Among these isolates, Pyrenochaeta nobilis strain SFJ12-R-5 (CGMCC No.17766), isolated from the root of Astragalus membranaceus, exhibited significant antagonistic activity against B. cinerea. It inhibited mycelial growth of the pathogen by 66.67±3.15%, with a large inhibition zone of 20.83±3.78 mm. The growth of pathogenic hypha was completely (100%) inhibited when treated with a 10-fold diluted P. nobilis used fresh fermentation filtrate. In vitro tests on tomato leaves and fruits showed lesion inhibition rates of 87.21% and 100%, respectively. Plants inoculated solely with B. cinerea showed a significantly higher gray mold disease severity (75.34%) than those co-treated with B. cinerea and the filtrate (28.57%), corresponding to a disease reduction rate of 62.08%. These findings provide the first evidence that P. nobilis could serve as a promising natural antagonist against B. cinerea, particularly in integrated disease management systems for tomato production in greenhouses. Furthermore, a high-quality genome of P. nobilis SFJ12-R-5 was constructed using a combination of next-generation and third-generation sequencing techniques. Following genome assembly, systematic annotation was conducted, and the carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) and phage-related (Phi) genes were identified. In conclusion, our study lays a solid the foundation for future research on the molecular mechanisms underlying the inhibitory activity of Pyrenochaeta spp. against B. cinerea.
Keywords: biocontrol agent, Botrytis cinerea, fungal endophyte, Inhibitory effect, genomeassembly, Pyrenochaeta nobilis
Received: 24 Apr 2025; Accepted: 11 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Wang, Jiang, Du, Liu and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Chunlai Liu, Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Harbin, China
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