Isolation and characterization of an antifungal substance from Burkholderia cepacia, an endophytic bacteria obtained from roots of cucumber.

In order to develop a new microbial fungicide for the control of vegetable diseases using endophytic bacteria, a total of 260 bacterial strains were isolated from fresh tissues of 5 plant species. After they were cultured in broth media, their antifungal activities were screened by in vivo bioassays against Botrytis cinerea(tomato gray mold), Pythium ultimum(cucumber damping-off), Phytopkhora infestans(tomato late blight), Colletotrichum orbiculare(cucumber anthracnose), and Blumeria graminis f. sp. hordei(barley powdery mildew). As the results of screening, 38 bacterial strains showed potent antifungal activities against at least one of 5 plant pathogens. A bacterial strain EB072 displayed potent disease control activities against 3 plant diseases. Among the bacterial strains with a potent antifungal activity against cucunlber anthracnose, three bacterial strains, EB054, EB151 and EB215, also displayed a potent in vitro antifungal activity against C. acutatum, a fungal agent causing pepper anthracnose. A bacterial strain EB215 obtained from roots of cucumber was identified as Burkholderia cepacia based on its physiological and biochemical characteristics and 165 rRNA gene sequence. An antifungal substance was isolated from the liquid cultures of B. cepacia EB215 strain by ethyl acetate partitioning, repeated silica gel column chromatography, and invitro bioassay, Its structural determination is in progress by various instrumental analyses.