Antimicrobial Metabolites from Ectomycorrhizal Fungus, Pisolithus tinctorius (Pers.) Coker against Soil Borne Plant Pathogens

Ganeshkumar P,Krishnamoorthy A S,Nakkeeran S,Sangeetha C,Sivakumar U,Thiribhuvanamala G

doi:10.29321/maj.10.000499

Abstract

Pisolithus tinctorius (Pers.) Coker is an ectomycorrhizal fungus that forms an abundant wealth of biomass in the forest ecosystem, with an untapped treasure of bioactive compounds and secondary metabolites having multifaceted use in health and agrochemical industries. The hidden potential of this fungus is tapped in the current study by using MTP1 isolate of P. tinctorius. The secondary metabolites of P. tinctorius were extracted and tested for their inhibitory efficacy against major soil-borne plant pathogens viz., Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici (Sacc.) Synder and Hansen; Macrophomina phaseolina (Goid); Rhizoctonia solani (Kuhn) and Sclerotium rolfsii (Sacc). The cell-free culture (CFC) filtrate of P.tinctorius showed the maximum mycelial inhibition of F. o. f. sp. lycopersici (52.00 %); R. solani (51.92%) and M. phaseolina (48.23%). However, the CFC filtrate mixture did not inhibit the growth of S. rolfsii. The GC-MS analysis of biomolecules composite of ethyl acetate fraction of CFC filtrate indicated the presence of compounds belonging to the nature of fatty acids, aromatic alcohol, and flavonoids. The reduction in the growth of the test pathogens with the increase in the concentration of CFC filtrate and the presence of several unknown compounds in P. tinctorius warrants further study with the purified form of antifungal biomolecules in reducing root rots and wilts incited by the soil-borne phytopathogens.

Highlights

Ectomycorrhizal fungi (ECM) are major components of the soil fungal communities in most of the forests around the world and they are ecologically and economically important (Mello et al, 2006)
Soil-borne plant pathogens are the causal agents of root rots, damping-off, and vascular wilts in almost all the plants resulting in heavy crop losses
The results revealed the presence of antifungal metabolites in 45 d old cell-free culture (CFC) at 1500ppm concentration inhibited F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici, M. phaseolina and R. solani with per cent inhibitions of 52.00, 46.15 and 51.92%, respectively (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Ectomycorrhizal fungi (ECM) are major components of the soil fungal communities in most of the forests around the world and they are ecologically and economically important (Mello et al, 2006). ECM fungi are obligate in plants of Betulaceae, Pinaceae, and Fagaceae families. Forest tree species like pines and eucalyptus depend on ECM symbiosis, without which they will not grow (Smith and Read, 1997) and belong to multiple families from the phylum like Basidiomycota, Ascomycota, and Zygomycota (Bruns et al, 2002). As many as 10,000 fungal species and approximately 8,000 plant species seem to be involved in the ECM relationship (Taylor and Alexander, 2005). Lots of information has been generated in temperate regions, knowledge of the ectomycorrhizal relationship with tropical tree

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Conclusion