Lipase-producing bacterial strains were isolated from Antarctic soil samples using the tricaprylin agar plate method. Seven strains with relatively strong lipase activities were selected. All of them turned out to be Bacillus pumilus strains by the 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. Their corresponding lipase genes were cloned, sequenced, and compared. Finally, three different Bacillus pumilus lipases (BPL1, BPL2, and BPL3) were chosen. Their amino acid sequence identities were in the range of 92-98% with the previous Bacillus pumilus lipases. Their optimum temperatures and pHs were measured to be 40 degrees C and pH 9. Lipase BPL1 and lipase BPL2 were stable up to 30 degrees C, whereas lipase BPL3 was stable up to 20 degrees C. Lipase BPL2 was stable within a pH range of 6-10, whereas lipase BPL1 and lipase BPL3 were stable within a pH range of 5-11, showing strong alkaline tolerance. All these lipases exhibited high hydrolytic activity toward pnitrophenyl caprylate (C8). In addition, lipase BPL1 showed high hydrolytic activity toward tributyrin, whereas lipase BPL2 and lipase BPL3 hydrolyzed tricaprylin and castor oil preferentially. These results demonstrated that the three Antarctic Bacillus lipases were alkaliphilic and had a substrate preference toward short- and mediumchain triglycerides. These Antarctic Bacillus lipases might be used in detergent and food industries.
Basal stem rot (BSR) is the most common disease of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) in Southeast Asia. BSR is caused by a white-rot fungus Ganoderma boninense. The disease is difficult to manage. Therefore, development of novel and environmentally safe approaches to control the disease is important. Species of Burkholderia are known to have diverse lifestyles, some of which can be beneficial to plants either by suppressing diseases or enhancing plant growth. In the present study, antifungal peptides (AFPs) produced by a bacterial strain isolated from the rhizosphere of an oil palm tree, namely Burkholderia sp. strain CP01, exhibited strong growth inhibition on G. boninense. A loss-of-function mutant of CP01 was generated, and it has enabled the identification of a 1.2 kDa peptide and its variants as the active antifungal compounds. High-resolution mass spectrometry revealed six analogous compounds with monoisotopic masses similar to the previously reported cyclic lipopeptides occidiofungin and burkholdine. The antifungal compounds of CP01 were secreted into media and we sought to use CP01 culture extract without living cells to control BSR disease. Glasshouse experiments showed that CP01 culture extract suppressed BSR disease in oil palm seedlings. The ability of CP01 to produce an antifungal substance and suppress plant disease suggests its potential application as a biofungicide in agriculture.
The study of congruency between phylogenies of interacting species can provide a powerful approach for understanding the evolutionary history of symbiotic associations. Orchid mycorrhizal fungi can survive independently of orchids making cospeciation unlikely, leading us to predict that any congruence would arise from host‐switches to closely related fungal species. The Australasian orchid subtribe Drakaeinae is an iconic group of sexually deceptive orchids that consists of approximately 66 species. In this study, we investigated the evolutionary relationships between representatives of all six Drakaeinae orchid genera (39 species) and their mycorrhizal fungi. We used an exome capture dataset to generate the first well‐resolved phylogeny of the Drakaeinae genera. A total of 10 closely related Tulasnella Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) and previously described species were associated with the Drakaeinae orchids. Three of them were shared among orchid genera, with each genus associating with 1–6 Tulasnella lineages. Cophylogenetic analyses show Drakaeinae orchids and their Tulasnella associates exhibit significant congruence (p < 0.001) in the topology of their phylogenetic trees. An event‐based method also revealed significant congruence in Drakaeinae–Tulasnella relationships, with duplications (35), losses (25), and failure to diverge (9) the most frequent events, with minimal evidence for cospeciation (1) and host‐switches (2). The high number of duplications suggests that the orchids speciate independently from the fungi, and the fungal species association of the ancestral orchid species is typically maintained in the daughter species. For the Drakaeinae–Tulasnella interaction, a pattern of phylogenetic niche conservatism rather than coevolution likely explains the observed phylogenetic congruency in orchid and fungal phylogenies. Given that many orchid genera are characterized by sharing of fungal species between closely related orchid species, we predict that these findings may apply to a wide range of orchid lineages.
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