Field isolates and laboratory strains of Botrytis cinerea, an ascomycetous fungus causing considerable economic losses, e.g., as "grey mould" of vine, were compared for differences in ploidy level by determining their DNA content per nucleus. Strain SAS56, an ascospore line used routinely for genetic analyses, is probably polyploid, since treatment with benomyl causes a significant reduction in DNA content per nucleus. This conclusion is substantiated by the increased sensitivity of the putative haploid derivatives to mutagens (UV and EMS). Molecular analyses (RAPD) of the haploidized strains indicate a very limited degree of heterozygosis of the parent strain SAS56. Analysis of field isolates of B. cinerea showed that their DNA content per nucleus varied considerably, indicating that aneuploidy/polyploidy is a widespread phenomenon in this species. This can explain both the variability and phenotypic instability of many field isolates of this fungus and the unusual difficulties faced by researchers in recovering stable recessive laboratory mutants. Since the haploid derivatives of SAS56 resemble the parent strain in their parasitic and physiological properties they should provide a good basis for classical and molecular genetic studies.

The solid-state NMR assignments of the 13C resonances of bacterial cellulose Iα were reinvestigated by INADEQUATE experiments on uniformly 13C-enriched samples from Acetobacter xylinum. Additionally, we determined the principal chemical shift tensor components of each 13C labeled site from a 2D iso-aniso RAI (recoupling of anisotropy information) spectrum acquired at magic angle spinning speed of 10 kHz. On the basis of these NMR data, the crystal structure of cellulose Iα was refined using the 13C chemical shifts for target functions. Starting off with coordinates derived from neutron scattering, our molecular dynamics simulations yielded four ensembles of 200 structures, two ensembles for hydrogen bond scheme A and B and two ensembles for different chemical shift assignments I and II, giving 800 structures in total. These were subsequently geometry-optimized with the given isotropic chemical shift constraints applying crystallographic boundary conditions, to identify a structure for every ensemble that fit best to the experimental NMR data. The resulting four model structures were then assessed by simulating the chemical shift tensors (using the bond polarization theory) and comparing these values with the experimental chemical shift anisotropy information (obtained by RAI). The earlier neutron diffraction study had reported two possible occupation schemes for the hydrogen-bonded hydroxyl-groups (A, B) which connect the cellulose chains. From these two possibilities, our NMR results single out pattern A as the most probable structure. In this work, the first time crystallographic boundary conditions were applied for 13C chemical shift structure refinement for molecular dynamics simulations and Newton−Raphson geometry optimization.

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