The grey mould fungus Botrytis cinerea causes losses of commercially important fruits, vegetables and ornamentals worldwide. Fungicide treatments are effective for disease control, but bear the risk of resistance development. The major resistance mechanism in fungi is target protein modification resulting in reduced drug binding. Multiple drug resistance (MDR) caused by increased efflux activity is common in human pathogenic microbes, but rarely described for plant pathogens. Annual monitoring for fungicide resistance in field isolates from fungicide-treated vineyards in France and Germany revealed a rapidly increasing appearance of B. cinerea field populations with three distinct MDR phenotypes. All MDR strains showed increased fungicide efflux activity and overexpression of efflux transporter genes. Similar to clinical MDR isolates of Candida yeasts that are due to transcription factor mutations, all MDR1 strains were shown to harbor activating mutations in a transcription factor (Mrr1) that controls the gene encoding ABC transporter AtrB. MDR2 strains had undergone a unique rearrangement in the promoter region of the major facilitator superfamily transporter gene mfsM2, induced by insertion of a retrotransposon-derived sequence. MDR2 strains carrying the same rearranged mfsM2 allele have probably migrated from French to German wine-growing regions. The roles of atrB, mrr1 and mfsM2 were proven by the phenotypes of knock-out and overexpression mutants. As confirmed by sexual crosses, combinations of mrr1 and mfsM2 mutations lead to MDR3 strains with higher broad-spectrum resistance. An MDR3 strain was shown in field experiments to be selected against sensitive strains by fungicide treatments. Our data document for the first time the rising prevalence, spread and molecular basis of MDR populations in a major plant pathogen in agricultural environments. These populations will increase the risk of grey mould rot and hamper the effectiveness of current strategies for fungicide resistance management. Bacterial and fungal pathogens cause diseases in humans and plants alike. Antibiotics and fungicides are used for disease control, but the microbes are able to adapt quickly to these drugs by mutation. Multiple drug resistance (MDR) is well investigated in human pathogens and causes increasing problems with antibiotic therapy. Driven by the continuous use of fungicides in commercial vineyards, three types of rapidly increasing multidrug resistant populations of the grey mould fungus Botrytis cinerea have appeared in French vineyards since the mid 1990s. Using a combination of physiological, molecular and genetic techniques, we demonstrate that these MDR phenotypes are correlated with increased drug efflux activity and overexpression of two efflux transporters. Just two types of mutations, one in a regulatory protein that controls drug efflux, and the other in the gene for an efflux transporter itself, are sufficient to explain the three MDR phenotypes. We also provide evidence that a subpopulation of the French MDR strains has migrated eastward into German wine-growing regions. We anticipate that by continuous selection of multi-resistant strains, chemical control of grey mould in the field will become increasingly difficult.

Filamentous ascomycetes contain large numbers of histidine kinases (HK) that belong to eleven classes. Members of class III from different species were previously shown to be involved in osmoregulation and resistance to dicarboximide and phenylpyrrole fungicides. We have inactivated the gene encoding the single group III HK, BOS1, in the economically important plant pathogen Botrytis cinerea. BOS1 inactivation had pleiotropic effects on the fungus. Besides the expected osmosensitivity and resistance to fungicides, null mutants presented additional characteristics indicating that BOS1 is necessary for normal macroconidiation and full virulence. On standard culture media, null mutants very rarely formed conidiophores and those few conidiophores failed to produce conidia. This defect could be partially restored with 1 M sorbitol, suggesting that another BOS1-independent signal cascade may be involved in macroconidiation. The mutants were not found to be hypersensitive to various oxidative stresses but were more resistant to menadione. Finally, pathogenicity tests showed that bos1-null mutants were significantly reduced in the ability to infect host plants. Appressorium morphogenesis was not altered; however, in planta growth was severely reduced. To our knowledge, this is the first class III HK characterized as a pathogenicity factor in a plant-pathogenic ascomycete.

Summary: Carboxamide fungicides target succinate dehydrogenase ( SDH ). Recent field monitoring studies have identified B otrytis cinerea isolates resistant to one or several SDH inhibitors ( SDHIs ) with amino acid substitutions in the SDH B subunit. We confirmed, by site‐directed mutagenesis of the sdhB gene, that each of the mutations identified in field strains conferred resistance to boscalid in B . cinerea , and in some cases cross‐resistance to other SDHIs (fluopyram, carboxin). Enzyme inhibition studies showed that the studied modifications ( SdhB _ P225T/L/F , N230I , H272Y/R/L ) affected the inhibition of SDH activity by SDHIs , directly contributing to resistance. Our results confirm the importance of H272 , P225 and N230 for carboxamide binding. Modifications of P225 and N230 conferred resistance to the four carboxamides tested (boscalid, fluopyram, carboxin, bixafen). Modifications of H272 had differential effects on the susceptibility of SDH to SDHIs . SdhB ^H272L , affected susceptibility to all SDHIs , SdhB ^H272R conferred resistance to all SDHIs tested except fluopyram, and SdhB ^H272Y conferred fluopyram hypersensitivity. Affinity‐binding studies with radiolabelled fluopyram revealed strong correlations among the affinity of SDHIs for SDH , SDH inhibition and in vivo growth inhibition in the wild type. The sdhB ^H272Y mutation did not affect SDH and respiration activities, whereas all the other mutations affected respiration by decreasing SDH activity.

Disease control through fungicides remains an important means to protect crops from fungal diseases and to secure the harvest. Plant-pathogenic fungi, especially Zymoseptoria tritici , have developed resistance against most currently used active ingredients, reducing or abolishing their efficacy. While target site modification is the most common resistance mechanism against single modes of action, active efflux of multiple drugs is an emerging phenomenon in fungal populations reducing additionally fungicides’ efficacy in multidrug-resistant strains. We have investigated the mutations responsible for increased drug efflux in Z. tritici field strains. Our study reveals that three different insertions of repeated elements in the same promoter lead to multidrug resistance in Z. tritici . The target gene encodes the membrane transporter MFS1 responsible for drug efflux, with the promoter inserts inducing its overexpression. These results underline the plasticity of repeated elements leading to fungicide resistance in Z. tritici .