and antimicrobial activity of the fungal metabolite toluquinol against phytopathogenic bacteria.

INTRODUCTION

Bacterial plant diseases cause tremendous economic losses worldwide. However, a few effective and sustainable control methods are currently available. To discover novel and effective management approaches, we screened marine fungi for their antibacterial activity against phytopathogenic bacteria and .

METHODS

We screened the culture broth of 55 fungal strains isolated from various marine sources (seawater, algae, and sediment) for their antibacterial activity using the broth microdilution method. Then, only the fungal strain (designated UL-Ce9) with higher antibacterial activity was tested in an experiment against tomato bacterial wilt. The active compounds of UL-Ce9 were extracted using ethyl acetate, purified by a series of chromatography, and the structure was elucidated by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Pesticide formulations of toluquinol were prepared as soluble concentrates and wettable powder. The disease control efficacy of toluquinol formulations was evaluated against blight of rice and the bacterial wilt of tomato.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The culture broth of UL-Ce9 showed high antibacterial activity against , and pv. , and we selected UL-Ce9 for the test. The UL-Ce9 culture broth completely suppressed the bacterial wilt of tomato at a dilution of 1:5. The phylogenetic analysis identified UL-Ce9 as , and the antibacterial metabolites were revealed as patulin, gentisyl alcohol, and toluquinol, all of which were associated with the biosynthetic pathway of the mycotoxin patulin. Patulin exhibited the highest antibacterial activity against 16 phytopathogenic bacteria , followed by toluquinol and gentisyl alcohol. As patulin is toxic, we selected toluquinol to investigate its potential use as a pesticide against bacterial plant diseases. Compared with the chemicals currently being applied in agriculture (streptomycin and oxytetracycline), toluquinol formulations exhibited similar and higher control efficacies against bacterial leaf blight of rice and bacterial wilt of tomato, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of the antibacterial activity of toluquinol against phytopathogenic bacteria. Our results suggest that toluquinol is a potential candidate for the development of novel and effective pesticides for the management of bacterial plant diseases.