Molecular explication of grape berry-fungal infections and their potential application in recent postharvest infection control strategies

Grapes are one of the highly valued non-climacteric fruits that can be consumed fresh or used to produce numerous food products and dietary supplements. Inadvertent fungal infections cause substantial economic and commodity loss in the grape industry. However, control measures have been developed and widely used to combat pathogenic fungal attacks in grapes, most of which are indiscriminate towards the pathogenic fungi. Precise interactions between various pathogenic fungi and grapes have not been fully explored. In the past decade, advanced molecular technics and ‘omics’ approaches have allowed progress to understand such interactions. Discoveries regarding pathogen entry, optimal conditions for pathogenesis, virulence factors, mycotoxin production, fungal genes involved in pathogenesis, quiescent and necrotrophic lifestyles of pathogenic fungi, and grape fruit's response towards the pathogen attack have been published. This review paper summarizes the possible pathways of fungal pathogenesis in grapes and environmental factors influencing fungal infections. We emphasize the molecular aspects of fungal invasions and the transition between quiescent and necrotrophic lifestyles of grape fungal pathogens and the grape's immune response against pathogen attack and genes involved in the defence mechanism. We pinpoint the recent innovations in control strategies and prospective developments in the field. This review aims to reduce the knowledge gap between the fungal disease progression mechanisms and the development of various disease control strategies in grape production.