Botrytis cinerea is the causal agent of grey mould for more than 200 plant species, including economically important vegetables, fruits and crops, which leads to economic losses worldwide. Target of rapamycin (TOR) acts a master regulator to control cell growth and proliferation by integrating nutrient, energy and growth factors in eukaryotic species, but little is known about whether TOR can function as a practicable target in the control of plant fungal pathogens. Here, we characterize TOR signalling of B. cinerea in the regulation of growth and pathogenicity as well as its potential value in genetic engineering for crop protection by bioinformatics analysis, pharmacological assays, biochemistry and genetics approaches. The results show that conserved TOR signalling occurs, and a functional FK506‐binding protein 12 kD (FKBP12) mediates the interaction between rapamycin and B. cinerea TOR (BcTOR). RNA sequencing (RNA‐Seq) analysis revealed that BcTOR displayed conserved functions, particularly in controlling growth and metabolism. Furthermore, pathogenicity assay showed that BcTOR inhibition efficiently reduces the infection of B. cinerea in plant leaves of Arabidopsis and potato or tomato fruits. Additionally, transgenic plants expressing double‐stranded RNA of BcTOR through the host‐induced gene silencing method could produce abundant small RNAs targeting BcTOR, and significantly block the occurrence of grey mould in potato and tomato. Taken together, our results suggest that BcTOR is an efficient target for genetic engineering in control of grey mould, and also a potential and promising target applied in the biocontrol of plant fungal pathogens.

中文翻译：

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灰霉病菌中宿主诱导的BcTOR基因沉默增强了植物对灰霉病的抗性。

灰葡萄孢是灰霉病的致病因子，对200多个植物种类，包括具有经济意义的蔬菜，水果和农作物，造成了全球经济损失。雷帕霉素的靶标（TOR）通过整合真核生物中的营养，能量和生长因子来控制细胞的生长和增殖，但对于TOR是否可以作为控制植物真菌病原体的可行靶标知之甚少。在这里，我们表征灰质芽孢杆菌的TOR信号转导通过生物信息学分析，药理分析，生物化学和遗传学方法，对生长和致病性的调控及其在作物保护的基因工程中的潜在价值。结果表明，保守的TOR信号发生，并且功能性FK506结合蛋白12 kD（FKBP12）介导雷帕霉素与灰质芽孢杆菌TOR（BcTOR）之间的相互作用。RNA测序（RNA‐Seq）分析表明BcTOR显示出保守的功能，特别是在控制生长和代谢方面。此外，致病性分析表明，BcTOR抑制有效降低了拟南芥植物叶片和马铃薯或番茄果实中灰葡萄孢的感染。此外，表达双链RNA的转基因植物BcTOR通过主机诱导的基因沉默方法可以产生丰富的小RNA靶向BcTOR，和显著方框灰霉病的在马铃薯和番茄的发生。综上所述，我们的结果表明，BcTOR是控制灰霉病的基因工程的有效靶标，也是在植物真菌病原体的生物防治中应用的潜在且有希望的靶标。