Genomic and Chemical Diversity of Bacillus subtilis Secondary Metabolites against Plant Pathogenic Fungi.

produces a wide range of secondary metabolites providing diverse plant growth-promoting and biocontrol abilities. These secondary metabolites include nonribosomal peptides with strong antimicrobial properties, causing either cell lysis, pore formation in fungal membranes, inhibition of certain enzymes, or bacterial protein synthesis. However, the natural products of are mostly studied either in laboratory strains or in individual isolates, and therefore, a comparative overview of secondary metabolites from various environmental strains is missing. In this study, we isolated 23 strains from 11 sampling sites, compared the fungal inhibition profiles of wild types and their nonribosomal peptide mutants, followed the production of targeted lipopeptides, and determined the complete genomes of 13 soil isolates. We discovered that nonribosomal peptide production varied among strains coisolated from the same soil samples. antagonism assays revealed that biocontrol properties depend on the targeted plant pathogenic fungus and the tested isolate. While plipastatin alone is sufficient to inhibit spp., a combination of plipastatin and surfactin is required to hinder growth of Detailed genomic analysis revealed that altered nonribosomal peptide production profiles in specific isolates are due to missing core genes, nonsense mutation, or potentially altered gene regulation. Our study combines microbiological antagonism assays with chemical nonribosomal peptide detection and biosynthetic gene cluster predictions in diverse soil isolates to provide a broader overview of the secondary metabolite chemodiversity of Secondary or specialized metabolites with antimicrobial activities define the biocontrol properties of microorganisms. Members of the genus produce a plethora of secondary metabolites, of which nonribosomally produced lipopeptides in particular display strong antifungal activity. To facilitate the prediction of the biocontrol potential of new isolates, we have explored the antifungal inhibitory profiles of recent isolates, combined with analytical natural product chemistry, mutational analysis, and detailed genome analysis of biosynthetic gene clusters. Such a comparative analysis helped to explain why selected isolates lack the production of certain secondary metabolites.