Rhizoctonia solani causes serious plant diseases. Neocryptolepine presented the significant antifungal activity against R. solani, however the mode of action is unclear. In this paper, we investigated the potential mode of action of neocryptolepine against R. solani integrated the proteomics and transcriptomics. Results showed that after treatment with neocryptolepine, 1012 differentially expressed proteins and 10 920 differentially expressed genes of R. solani were found, most of them were enriched in mitochondrial respiratory chain. It affected oxidative phosphorylation led to the enrichment of ROS and the decrease of MMP, and inhibited complex III activity with the inhibition rate of 63.51% at 10 μg/mL. The mitochondrial structural and function were damaged. Cytochrome b-c1 complex subunit Rieske (UQCRFS1) with the high binding score to neocryptolepine was found as a potential target. In addition, it inhibited the sclerotia formation and presented antifungal efficacy by decreasing the diameter of a wound in potato in a concentration-dependent manner. Above results indicated that neocryptolepine inhibited the complex III activity by binding UQCRFS1 and blocked the ion transfer to cause the death of R. solani mycelia. This study laid the foundation for the future development of neocryptolepine as an alternative biofungicide.
Keywords: Rhizoctonia solani; antifungal activity; biofungicide; complex III; neocryptolepine.