Abstract:
Phytopathogenic fungi are important problems in agricultural cultivation worldwide. The use of bacterial antagonists for biological control is an important environmentally friendly strategy for controlling phytopathogens. Thus, this study was focused on the isolation and screening of the potential bacterial antagonists from fermented bioextract (FBE) and shrimp shells. Antagonism of isolated bacteria to inhibit the growth of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides and Sclerotium rolfsii were investigated. Moreover, the efficiency of extracellular antifungal metabolites produced by the selected bacterial antagonists on the fungal growth inhibition and mycelial morphology was also investigated.
A total of 143 bacteria isolated from FBE and shrimp shells were screened for in vitro antagonism toward C. gloeosporioides and S. rolfsii by dual culture technique. The results found that 3 potent antagonistic bacteria, designated SSCHC4, EMC4 and SSE4, showed the high levels of mycelial growth inhibition to both fungi. These 3 bacterial strains were selected and identified by partial 16S rDNA sequence analysis. The strain SSCHC4 showed a high similarity to Aeromonas salmonicida while strain SSE4 and EMC4 showed a high similarity to Bacillus subtilis. Unfortunately, A. salmonicida causes disease in fish, thus it was unsafe to use as biocontrol agent. Cell-free culture filtrates collected from both the exponential and stationary phases of B. subtilis SSE4 and B. subtilis EMC4 inhibited the growth of both fungi, indicating that growth suppression was associated with the presence of antifungal metabolites in the culture filtrates. Stationary culture filtrate of both antagonists inhibited the submerged growth of C. gloeosporioides and S. rolfsii better than exponential culture filtrate. Additionally, morphological changes such as hyphal swelling, cytoplasm aggregation and distortion were observed in fungi grown on PDA that contained the culture filtrates. There was no significant decrease in the percentage of fungal growth inhibition by exponential and stationary culture filtrates after boiling for 45 min or treatment with proteinase K. It could be concluded that thermostable antifungal compounds in the culture filtrate of B. subtilis SSE4 and B. subtilis EMC4 play an important role in the growth suppression of C. gloeosporioides and S. rolfsii. This finding might lead to the use of both bacterial antagonists for biological control of fungal plant pathogens.