Biocontrol of tomato bacterial wilt by a new strain Bacillus velezensis FJAT-46737 and its lipopeptides

Abstract

Background There is an urgent need to discover alternative antimicrobial agents to control bacterial wilt. The objectives of this study were to report a new lipopeptide-producding biocontrol strain FJAT-46737 and its lipopeptides, and to investigate their antagonistic effects.Results Based on the whole genome sequence analysis, the new strain FJAT-46737 was finally identified as Bacillus velezensis and seven gene clusters that responsible for synthesis of bioactive secondary metabolite in the FJAT-46737 were predicted. Antimicrobial results demonstrated that FJAT-46737 exhibited broad-spectrum antimicrobial activities in vitro against bacteria and fungi. The pot experiments showed that the tomato bacterial wilt control efficiencies of the whole cultures, the 2-fold diluted supernatants and the crude lipopeptide of FJAT-46737 were 66.2%, 82.0%, and 96.2%, respectively. The above results suggested that one of the antagonistic mechanisms of FJAT-46737 was secretion of lipopeptides that consisted of iturins, fengycins and surfactins. The crude lipopeptides had significant antagonistic activities on several pathogen in a dosage-dependent manner, and the fengycins confirmed to play a major role in antibacterial abilities in vitro of the lipopeptides against Ralstonia solanacearum . Furthermore, it was found that the rich organic nitrogen sources (expecially yeast extracts) in the media were benificial for FJAT-46737 to produce fengycin and surfactin. The secretion of these two lipopeptides were also adjusted by the culture temperature: the content of the fengycins decreased by 96.6% and that of the surfactins ascended by 59.9% from 20 o C to 40 o C. And 20 o C~25 o C is the suitable temperature for FJAT-46737 to produce lipopeptide.Conclusions The B. velezensis strain FJAT-46737 and its lipopeptides would used as new sources of potential biocontrol agents against plant pathogens, especially the bacterial wilt pathogen R. solanacearum .