Biocontrol potential of lipopeptides produced by the novel Bacillus subtilis strain Y17B against postharvest Alternaria fruit rot of cherry

Tanvir Ahmad; Fuguo Xing; Chengrong Nie; Changyu Cao; Ying Xiao; Xi Yu; Anam Moosa; Yang Liu

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1150217

Biocontrol potential of lipopeptides produced by the novel Bacillus subtilis strain Y17B against postharvest Alternaria fruit rot of cherry

Front Microbiol. 2023 Mar 15:14:1150217. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1150217. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Tanvir Ahmad^{1

2}, Fuguo Xing², Chengrong Nie¹, Changyu Cao³, Ying Xiao⁴, Xi Yu⁴, Anam Moosa⁵, Yang Liu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ School of Food Science and Engineering, Foshan University, National Technical Center (Foshan) for Quality Control of Famous and Special Agricultural Products (CAQS-GAP-KZZX043), Guangdong Key Laboratory of Food Intelligent Manufacturing, Foshan, Guangdong, China.
² Key Laboratory of Agro-Products Quality and Safety Control in Storage and Transport Process, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs/Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
³ School of Life Sciences and Engineering, Foshan University, Foshan, Guangdong, China.
⁴ Faculty of Medicine, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macao SAR, China.
⁵ Department of Plant Pathology, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, Pakistan.

Abstract

The use of synthetic fungicides against postharvest Alternaria rot adversely affects human health and the environment. In this study, as a safe alternative to fungicides, Bacillus subtilis strain Y17B isolated from soil exhibited significant antifungal activity against Alternaria alternata. Y17B was identified as B. subtilis based on phenotypic identification and 16S rRNA sequence analysis. To reveal the antimicrobial activity of this strain, a PCR-based study detected the presence of antifungal lipopeptide (LP) biosynthetic genes from genomic DNA. UPLC Q TOF mass spectrometry analysis detected the LPs surfactin (m/z 994.64, 1022.68, and 1026.62), iturin (m/z 1043.56), and fengycin (m/z 1491.85) in the extracted LP crude of B. subtilis Y17B. In vitro antagonistic study demonstrated the efficiency of LPs in inhibiting A. alternata growth. Microscopy (SEM and TEM) studies showed the alteration of the morphology of A. alternata in the interaction with LPs. In vivo test results revealed the efficiency of LPs in reducing the growth of the A. alternata pathogen. The overall results highlight the biocontrol potential of LPs produced by B. subtilis Y17B as an effective biological control agent against A. alternata fruit rot of cherry.

Keywords: Alternaria alternata; Bacillus subtilis; antifungal; biocontrol; fruit rot; postharvest disease.