Abstract

Botrytis cinerea ( B. cinerea ) may cause severe decay in fruits and vegetables. In this paper, we found a food-borne compound ginsenoside CK (GCK) (from Ginseng ) demonstrating excellent anti- B. cinerea activity and investigated its underlying inhibitory mechanism. The computational biology methods and bioactivity assays revealed that GCK markedly inhibited the bioactivity of sterol 14α-demethylase cytochrome P450 (CYP51) in B. cinerea with a competitive inhibitory mechanism (IC 50 = 14.45 μM). In vitro tests showed that GCK (64 × 10 −3 g L −1 ) limited the mycelial growth of B. cinerea through inhibiting CYP51 activity by 85.92%. Notably, GCK treatment decreased the bioactivity of CYP51, thereby increasing cell membrane permeability that led to the death of B. cinerea . Moreover, GCK (64 × 10 −3 g L −1 ) treatment reduced the decay of cherry tomatoes by 89.24% compared with those of blank control group. Our research revealed that the food-borne substance GCK could inhibit B. cinerea , prolonging the shelf life of cherry tomatoes. Thus, GCK has the potential to be applied in the preservation of fruits as an antifungal agent.