Telomeric DNA of Botrytis cinerea: a useful tool for strain identification

Telomeric DNA was isolated from the phytopathogenic fungus Botrytis cinerea by PCR using only the oligonucleotide primer (CCCTAA)₄. As with other filamentous fungi, B. cinerea has a short TTAGGG telomeric repeat. Telomere-linked restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) was found in strains of B. cinerea isolated from different host plants collected from different regions at different periods. Almost every strain had a specific RFLP pattern, including those collected from the same plant one month apart. Thus, this marker appears to be an excellent tool to show the great polymorphism of B. cinerea strains by fingerprinting. The Southern blots of some strains of B. cinerea showed one band which was much more intense than the others, suggesting that the majority of telomere-associated sequences have the same sequence.