Tamizi Amin-Asyraf, Mat-Amin Noriha, Weaver Jack A, Olumakaiye Richard T, Akbar Muhamad Afiq, Jin Sophie, Bunawan Hamidun, Alberti Fabrizio
Agri-Omics and Bioinformatics Programme, Biotechnology and Nanotechnology Research Centre, Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute Headquarters (MARDI), Serdang 43400, Selangor, Malaysia.
School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
J Fungi (Basel). 2022 Feb 28;8(3):246. doi: 10.3390/jof8030246.
, the causal agent of papaya dieback disease, is a devastating pathogen that has caused a tremendous decrease in Malaysian papaya export and affected papaya crops in neighbouring countries. A few studies on bacterial species capable of suppressing have been reported, but the availability of antagonistic fungi remains unknown. In this study, mycelial suspensions from five rhizospheric isolates of Malaysian origin were found to exhibit notable antagonisms against during co-cultivation. We further characterised three isolates, UKM-M-UW RA5, UKM-M-UW RA6, and UKM-M-UW RA3a, that showed significant growth inhibition zones on plate-based inhibition assays. A study of the genomes of the three strains through a combination of Oxford nanopore and Illumina sequencing technologies highlighted potential secondary metabolite pathways that might underpin their antimicrobial properties. Based on these findings, the fungal isolates are proven to be useful as potential biological control agents against and the genomic data opens possibilities to further explore the underlying molecular mechanisms behind their antimicrobial activity, with potential synthetic biology applications.
木瓜枯萎病的病原体是一种极具破坏力的病原菌，它导致马来西亚木瓜出口量大幅下降，并影响了邻国的木瓜作物。此前已有一些关于能够抑制该病原菌的细菌物种的研究报道，但拮抗菌的情况尚不清楚。在本研究中，发现来自马来西亚的五种根际真菌分离株的菌丝体悬浮液在共培养过程中对该病原菌表现出显著的拮抗作用。我们进一步对三个分离株UKM-M-UW RA5、UKM-M-UW RA6和UKM-M-UW RA3a进行了表征，它们在基于平板的抑制试验中显示出显著的生长抑制区。通过结合牛津纳米孔和Illumina测序技术对这三个菌株的基因组进行研究，突出了可能支撑其抗菌特性的潜在次生代谢产物途径。基于这些发现，这些真菌分离株被证明可作为对抗该病原菌的潜在生物防治剂，而基因组数据为进一步探索其抗菌活性背后的潜在分子机制以及潜在的合成生物学应用提供了可能性。
