Abstract
Garlic (Allium sativum L.) plays an important role in popular culture due to its dietary and medicinal uses. It is also used to produce a wide range of pharmacologically interesting molecules. Several pathogens affect garlic plants, especially Athelia (Sclerotium) rolfsii, a fungus that is widespread and causes large economic losses. It causes direct damage to crops and leads to plant stress, which induces secondary metabolite production in plants. The use of microorganisms as biocontrol agents may induce the production of beneficial metabolites in plants that will protect it and promote resistance to pathogen attack. In addition to suppressing disease, biological control agents may have elicitor effects that could induce an increase in the production of useful bioactive secondary metabolites in plants, some of which may be of pharmacological interest. Therefore, the search for new biological control agents should also consider their potential as elicitor agents. This paper presents an analysis of the biological control of Athelia (Sclerotium) rolfsii by antagonistic microrganisms, the potential of yeasts and bacteria of the genus Bacillus for the biocontrol of phytopathogens, microrganisms influence in nutritional and bioactive compounds content of interest to the pharmaceutical industry.
Highlights
Garlic (Allium sativum L.) is a member of the Alliaceae family
The pharmacological properties of garlic are related to the presence of secondary metabolites, such as organosulfur compounds, which are responsible for its strong, characteristic odor
Phenolic compound contents are high in garlic, especially the flavonoids: quercetin, apigenin, and myricetin (Lanzotti 2006), which play a role in plant resistance to pathogens (Lattanzio et al 2006)
Summary
The pharmacological properties of garlic are related to the presence of secondary metabolites, such as organosulfur compounds, which are responsible for its strong, characteristic odor. An important action mechanism underlying the antagonistic microorganism effects on A. rolfsii is the production of hydrolytic enzymes that degrade phytopathogenic cells and, suppress their development through mycoparasitism of sclerodes and hyphae This mechanism has been shown to be affective against actinobacteria in the genus Streptomyces (Li et al 2017, Thampi and Bhai 2017). Their main effect is to degrade the cell wall of the pathogen (Abou-Aly et al 2015, Saritha et al 2015, Janahiraman et al 2016) Antibiosis is another action mechanism that been shown to control phytopathogens. Bacillus isolates have been shown to efficiently control A. rolfsii using antibiosis They release extracellular compounds into the rhizosphere, and produce antimicrobial substances and plant hormones. Hydrogen cyanide (cyanogenesis) and siderophore production may inhibit pathogens These methods are thought to be used by bacteria in the genera Pseudomonas and Bacillus to control A. rolfsii. Future research should expand the number of biocontrol options and reduce the potential breakdown of existing control methods
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