TELOMERIC DNA OF BOTRYTIS-CINEREA - A USEFUL TOOL FOR STRAIN IDENTIFICATION

Telomeric DNA was isolated from the phytopathogenic fungus Botrytis ci nerea by PCR using only the oligonucleotide primer (CCCTAA)(4). As wit h other filamentous fungi, B. cinerea has a short TTAGGG telomeric rep eat. Telomere-linked restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) w as found in strains of B. cinerea isolated from different host plants collected from different regions at different periods. Almost every st rain had a specific RFLP pattern, including those collected from the s ame plant one month apart. Thus, this marker appears to be an excellen t tool to show the great polymorphism of B. cinerea strains by fingerp rinting. The Southern blots of some strains of B. cinerea showed one b and which was much more intense than the others, suggesting that the m ajority of telomere-associated sequences have the same sequence.