Metabolic and Transcriptional Variation on Strawberry Fruit in Response to Botrytis cinerea Infection and Fruit Ripening

Botrytis cinerea is the most destructive fungal pathogen to strawberry fruit, either at or after harvest. We found that B. cinerea infection caused a “red circle” phenotype around the lesion on strawberry fruits when they were infected at the white stage. Furthermore, pathogen infection is essential for the onset of the phenotype. Since color change was the prominent phenotype in both “red circles” and ripe strawberries, we compared the broad target metabolic and global transcriptomic profiles of the “red circles” with ripened fruits. B. cinerea infection induced phytohormone alterations, lipid metabolism changes, and triterpene and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, leading to the accumulation of triterpenes, phenolic acids, lignins, and anthocyanins. The comparative analysis revealed that B. cinerea infection did not promote strawberry ripening. These results provide important insights into strawberry fruit-B. cinerea interactions and may be useful for improving strawberry disease management strategies.