Korean Journal of Mycology (Kor. J. Mycol.)
Indexed in SCOPUS, KCI, DOAJ
OPEN ACCESS, PEER REVIEWED
pISSN 0253-651X
eISSN 2383-5249
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Functional Genomic Analysis of Bacillus thuringiensis C25 Reveals the Potential Genes Regulating Antifungal Activity against Rosellinia necatrix

1Division of Biotechnology, College of Environmental and Bioresource Sciences, Chonbuk National
University, Iksan 54596, Korea 
2Safety, Environment, and Life Sciences Center, Chonbuk National University, Iksan 54596, Korea
3Department of Biology, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 28644, Korea
†These authors contributed equally to this work.

Correspondence to cho317@jbnu.ac.kr, hjryu96@gmail.com

Korean Journal of Mycology (Kor J Mycol) September, 2019, 47(4):417-25.
https://doi.org/10.4489/KJM.20190046
Accepted: December 03, 2019; Revised: November 20, 2019; Received: October 02, 2019
Published: September, 2019.
© 2019 THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF MYCOLOGY.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ABSTRACT

Biocontrol agents (BCAs) are widely used to protect plants from diverse biotic and abiotic stresses in agricultural and ecological fields. Among the various microbes, many subspecies of the gram-positive genus, Bacillus, have been successfully industrialized as eco-friendly biological pesticides and fertilizers. In the current study, we demonstrated that Bacillus thuringiensis C25 exhibited antagonistic effects on the mycelial growth of Rosellinia necatrix, a fungal phytopathogen. Scanning electron microscopy analysis revealed that B. thuringiensis C25 degraded the cell wall structures of R. necatrix mycelia. In the functional genomic analysis of B. thuringiensis C25, we annotated 5,683 genes and selected the gene sets that potentially encoded fungal cell wall degrading enzymes (CWDEs). The growth inhibition effects on R. necatrix were highly correlated with the transcriptional activity of the mycelial cell wall degrading genes of B. thuringiensis C25. The transcript levels of CWDEs, including CshiA, B, and Glycos_transf_2 genes in B. thuringiensis C25, were enhanced following co-cultivation with R. necatrix. In conclusion, our study suggested that B. thuringiensis C25 could serve as a suitable candidate for controlling R. necatrix and could facilitate elucidating the mechanisms underlying the antifungal activities of BCAs against phytopathogens.

Keywords

Bacillus thuringiensis C25, Biological control, Cell wall degrading enzymes, Gene annotation, Rosellinia necatrix

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