Towards the discovery of antimicrobial natural products made by Trichoderma spp. and study of their biosynthesis Sophie Jin 1 , Noriha Mat Amin 2 , Amin A. Tamizi 2 , Hamidun Bunawan 3 , Lijiang Song 4 , Fabrizio Alberti 1 1 School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, UK, 2 Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI),Malaysia, 3 Institute of Systems Biology (INBIOSIS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia, 4 Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, UK sophie.jin@warwick.ac.uk, Papaya ( Carica papaya L.) plantations around the world are being devastated by papaya dieback disease caused by Erwinia mallotivora , which leads to plant death. Biocontrol measures are the most promising to explore as other strategies such as crop management, chemical treatment or the use of resistant plants are either not manageable or not available. Three strains of Trichoderma koningiopsis have been identified as being active against E. mallotivora . This project aims to purify and characterise secondary metabolites from those three Trichoderma strains showing bioactivity against E. mallotivora . So far, results show that crude extracts of all three strains have antibacterial activity with one showing additional antifungal activity. Flash chromatography, coupled with bioassays and LC/MS-MS, was used to pinpoint which compounds are responsible for antimicrobial activity. From bioactive fractions, two compounds were purified using preparative HPLC and purity of those compounds was assessed using MS. NMR spectroscopy will be used to elucidate their structure. In addition, the genomes of the Trichoderma strains have been sequenced and PKS and NRPS clusters have been identified through AntiSMASH. CRISPR/Cas9 knockouts will be carried out to investigate if the antimicrobial activity is due to PKS and NRPS compounds and if so, to characterise their BGCs.
P36
© The Author(s), 2022
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog