VATIS UPDATE Article

Scientists from National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), India, have identified an antifungal bacterium that can destroy fungal infections by eating them up. The capability of devouring the fungi, leaving no remnants of the infection could make these bacteria a more effective antifungal agent than the ones currently available. Furthermore, the group has also identified a bacterial protein, which is essential for eating fungi.

It opens up various possibilities ranging from using the bacterium or the protein for antifungal sprays over fields or utilizing it as transgene to develop broad spectrum fungal disease resistant plants. A team led by Dr. Gopaljee Jha from NIPGR, had isolated the bacterium Burkholderia gladioli strain NGJ1 from healthy rice seedling. In their study, the group has shown that the bacteria can eat up broad spectrum of fungi, a property technically called mycophagy.

The discovery was an accidental one en route to the team’s endeavour to try and understand the molecular intricacies of the bacteria Rhizoctonia solani, which causes sheath blight disease, a significant fungal disease of rice. While establishing detached bioassay to study the pathogenesis of R. solani on laboratory media plates, the group observed that whenever a particular yellow coloured bacterium ooze out from rice, the growth of R. solani was prevented.