RT journal article
T1 Endophytic Bacteria Bacillus subtilis, Isolated from Zea mays, as Potential Biocontrol Agent against Botrytis cinerea
A1 Bolívar-Anillo, Hernando José
A1 González Rodríguez, Victoria Eugenia
A1 Cantoral Fernández, Jesús Manuel
A1 García-Sánchez, Darío
A1 González Collado, Isidro
A1 Garrido Crespo, Carlos
A2 BiomedicinaBiotecnología y Salud Pública
A2 Química Orgánica
K1 Botrytis cinerea
K1 Bacillus subtilis
K1 biocontrol
K1 plant promotion
K1 Zea mays
K1 Phaseolus vulgaris
K1 endophytic bacteria
AB Simple Summary Plant-microorganism associations date back more than 400 million years. Plants host microorganisms that establish many different relationships with them, some negative and others very positive for both organisms. A type of this relationship is established with microorganisms that live inside them, known as endophytic microorganisms; they can include bacteria, yeasts, and fungi. In this study, we isolate endophytic bacteria from maize plants, and we characterize them in order to check their potential for being used as biocontrol agents against Botrytis cinerea, one of the most important phytopathogenic fungi in the world. The endophytic bacteria showed this antagonistic effect during in vitro assay and also during in vivo assay in Phaseolus vulgaris. At the same time, they showed the capacity for promoting growth in Zea mays plants. Plant diseases are one of the main factors responsible for food loss in the world, and 20-40% of such loss is caused by pathogenic infections. Botrytis cinerea is the most widely studied necrotrophic phytopathogenic fungus. It is responsible for incalculable economic losses due to the large number of host plants affected. Today, B. cinerea is controlled mainly by synthetic fungicides whose frequent application increases risk of resistance, thus making them unsustainable in terms of the environment and human health. In the search for new alternatives for the biocontrol of this pathogen, the use of endophytic microorganisms and their metabolites has gained momentum in recent years. In this work, we isolated endophytic bacteria from Zea mays cultivated in Colombia. Several strains of Bacillus subtilis, isolated and characterized in this work, exhibited growth inhibition against B. cinerea of more than 40% in in vitro cultures. These strains were characterized by studying several of their biochemical properties, such as production of lipopeptides, potassium solubilization, proteolytic and amylolytic capacity, production of siderophores, biofilm assays, and so on. We also analyzed: (i) its capacity to promote maize growth (Zea mays) in vivo, and (ii) its capacity to biocontrol B. cinerea during in vivo infection in plants (Phaseolus vulgaris).
PB MDPI
SN 2079-7737
YR 2021
FD 2021-06
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/25404
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/25404
LA eng
NO This research was supported by grants from MINECO-FEDER RTI 2018-097356-B-C21, -B-C22, Research Project FEDER-UCA18-107713, and the University of Cadiz by the "Programa de Fomento e Impulso de la actividad de Investigacion y Transferencia de la Universidad de Cadiz".
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 05-nov-2026