Gliotoxin is an important secondary metabolite involved in suppression of Sclerotium rolfsii by Trichoderma virens T23.

Sclerotium rolfsii causes destructive soilborne disease in numerous plant species, and biological control may be a promising and sustainable approach for suppressing this widespread pathogen. In this study, the antagonistic effect against S. rolfsii of ten Trichoderma strains was tested by the dual culture method, and a gliotoxin-producing strain, Trichoderma virens T23, was shown to be the most effective inhibiting growth of S. rolfsii in vitro by 70.2%. To clarify the antagonistic mechanism and gliotoxin biosynthesis regulation of T23, a gliotoxin-deficient mutant was constructed via Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated gene knockout in vivo. As expected, disruption of the gene located in the putative gliotoxin biosynthesis gene cluster, gliI-T, resulted in gliotoxin deficiency and attenuation of the antagonistic effect against S. rolfsii, indicating that gliotoxin biosynthesis is regulated by gliI-T and that gliotoxin is an important antifungal metabolite of T23. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that gliotoxin treatment caused marked alterations of the hyphal cells of S. rolfsii depending on the drug concentration, whereby one of the prominent structural alterations was a reduction in the number and length of mitochondrial cristae. When exposed to 30 μg/mL gliotoxin for 12 h, striking plasmolysis and ultrastructural changes were induced in S. rolfsii. The results demonstrate that gliotoxin is an important secondary metabolite of T. virens T23 in its antagonism against S. rolfsii.