Noble Rot (Botrytis cinerea)
Why it Matters?
Botrytis cinerea, also known as noble rot, is a wine-enhancing fungus that cannot be cloned due to its chromosome set being distributed across multiple nuclei, challenging classical genetics.
What You Should Know?
Botrytis cinerea, also called noble rot, is a fungus that infects grapes, concentrating sugars and enhancing wine flavor.
It is essential in making premium sweet wines like Sauternes in France, Trockenbeerenauslese in Germany/Austria, and Tokaji Aszú in Hungary.
Noble rot causes grape berries to dehydrate naturally, increasing their sugar and acid content, which is ideal for dessert wines.
It is classified as an ascomycete fungus, producing ascospores within a sac-like cell called an ascus.
Recent research by Sichuan University (China) and the University of British Columbia (Canada) found that Botrytis cannot be cloned.
In Botrytis, no single nucleus contains a full chromosome set as they are distributed across two or more nuclei, defying typical genetic norms.
Molecular probes showed that each nucleus within an ascospore carries only a subset of chromosomes.
This makes cloning of Botrytis and Sclerotinia sclerotium impossible, unlike other fungi and animals.
The discovery challenges the fundamental principle that each nucleus should contain a full genomic set.
The picking of noble rot-infected grapes is labor-intensive as only select shriveled grapes are suitable, increasing wine cost.
The findings published in Science have raised new questions about chromosome allocation, genetic stability, and fungal reproduction.