The fungal necrotroph Botrytis cinerea is known to require enzymes that degrade host cell walls for its virulence, but degradation of arabinan was not known to be important to the process. In comprehensive work published in the August issue, Nafisi et al. demonstrate that B. cinerea produces an arabinanase, that the encoding gene is induced during infection, and that the gene is required for full virulence on Arabidopsis thaliana. Interestingly, arabinanase is expressed at lower levels during infection of other hosts and in these cases is not required for virulence, indicating the pathogen’s ability to adapt its mode of attack to a particular host.

现已知，死体营养型真菌灰霉病菌（Botrytis cinerea）的致病性依赖于降解寄主细胞壁的酶。然而，聚阿拉伯糖降解的重要性尚未研究透彻。在发表于本月期刊的一项全面的研究中，Nafisi和同事证实了灰霉病菌产生一种聚阿拉伯糖酶，其编码基因在侵染过程中被诱导表达，并且这种酶也是对拟南芥高致病性所必需的。有趣的是，在侵染其它寄主的过程中，聚阿拉伯糖酶处于较低的表达水平，并且不影响对这些寄主的致病性，这表明了该病原菌能够适应针对特定寄主的攻击模式。