Botrytis cinerea is a necrotrophic fungus that causes severe losses of postharvest pepper fruit. Moreover, this fungus is indiscriminate, causing severe disease in a variety of plant species, thus isolation and identification of the individual strains are crucial for the development of strain specific antifungal agents. In this study, B. cinerea was isolated from naturally infected green pepper fruit and identified through morphological features, pathogenic symptoms and rDNA-ITS analysis. The antifungal potential of the food additive sodium dehydroacetate (SD) and plant natural product trans-2-hexenal (TH) against the isolated pathogen was then examined. Sequence alignment and phylogenetic tree analysis matched the isolated strain to B. cinerea strains previously isolated from infected sweet pepper in Pakistan, and homology alignment analysis showed that it was 100% homologous to strain NRCB07. In vitro and in vivo experiments showed that both SD and TH treatments strongly inhibited the growth of the isolated B. cinerea, SD had a concentration dependent effect, while TH had an obvious antifungal effect only at higher concentrations. Both SD and TH limited the progression of gray mold disease and reduced the weight loss and respiration rate of inoculated green peppers. Treated pepper retained higher levels of Vc, chlorophyll and total soluble solids. SD and TH also enhanced the activities of the antioxidant enzymes SOD, POD and CAT of pepper, which may be directly responsible for the delayed onset of gray mold disease. Taken together, these results suggest that SD and TH are potential antifungal agents against B. cinerea and can be considered for the health control of gray mold in postharvest green peppers.

Botrytis cinerea是一种坏死性真菌，可导致采后辣椒果实严重损失。此外，这种真菌是不分青红皂白的，在多种植物物种中引起严重疾病，因此分离和鉴定单个菌株对于开发菌株特异性抗真菌剂至关重要。在这项研究中，从自然感染的青椒果实中分离出B. cinerea ，并通过形态特征、致病症状和 rDNA-ITS 分析进行鉴定。然后检查食品添加剂脱氢乙酸钠 (SD) 和植物天然产物 trans-2-己烯醛 (TH) 对分离的病原体的抗真菌潜力。序列比对和系统发育树分析将分离的菌株与B. cinerea相匹配先前从巴基斯坦受感染的甜椒中分离出的菌株，同源比对分析表明它与菌株NRCB07具有100%的同源性。体外和体内实验表明，SD 和 TH 处理均强烈抑制分离的B. cinerea的生长, SD 具有浓度依赖性作用，而 TH 仅在较高浓度下具有明显的抗真菌作用。SD 和 TH 都限制了灰霉病的进展，并降低了接种青椒的体重减轻和呼吸速率。处理过的辣椒保留了较高水平的 Vc、叶绿素和总可溶性固体。SD 和 TH 还增强了辣椒的抗氧化酶 SOD、POD 和 CAT 的活性，这可能是延迟灰霉病发病的直接原因。总之，这些结果表明 SD 和 TH 是潜在的抗灰霉病菌的抗真菌剂，可考虑用于控制青椒采后灰霉病的健康。