One Cut To Change Them All: Crispr/Cas, A Groundbreaking Tool For Genome Editing In Botrytis Cinerea And Other Fungal Plant Pathogens

CRISPR/Cas is a genome editing technology that has opened new dimensions in functional biology. In a recent publication, we presented a highly efficient CRISPR/Cas technique for Botrytis cinerea, which dramatically increases our options to mutagenize and modify single or multiple genes. In this Perspectives article, we describe the essential features of the method and demonstrate with several examples how it opens new avenues for unraveling the virulence mechanisms of Botrytis and other plant pathogenic fungi and can accelerate research for the identification of new antifungal compounds.