A research group led by Dr. Gopaljee Jha at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), India, has identified a novel broad spectrum antifungal protein. The breakthrough was heralded by the team when they isolated a novel bacterium Burkholderia gladioli strain NGJ1 from healthy rice seedling which exhibits broad spectrum fungal eating property (the phenomenon known as mycophagy). The results have been published in the journal Nature communications.
The researchers observed that bacterium were killing fungal cells to utilize their metabolites for its own growth and survival. They tested the purified Bg_9562 protein to check the broad spectrum antifungal activity. Strikingly, the antifungal activity was observed against several economically important phytopathogens, such as Rhizoctonia solani (rice sheath blight pathogen), Magnaportheoryzae (rice blast pathogen), Fusarium oxysporum (pathogenic to various plants), Aschocytarabiei (chickpea blight pathogen), Venturiainaequalis (apple scab pathogen) and Candida albicans (causes Candidiasis in humans).
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Novel antifungal molecule
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