Isolation and Numerical Identification of Streptomyces humidus strain S5-55 Antagonistic to Plant Pathogenic Fungi

To search for the antifungal substances, various actino-mycete isolates were obtained from various soils of Korea using plate dilution method on the humic acid vitamin agar plates. In the screening procedures using a dual culture method, 32 actionomycete isolates were selected, which showed the inhibitory activity against mycelial growth of plant pathogenic fungi Altirnaria mali, Colletotrichum gloeosporides, Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cucumerinum, Magnaporthe grisea, Phytophthora capsici, and Rhizoctonia solani. Bioassay of the crude extracts from culture filtrates and mycelial mets revealed that 12 antagonistic actionomycetes produced highly active antifungal substances. Actinomycete strain S5-55 which showed the substantial antifungal activity against the tested fungi was selected for production of the antifungal substances. Based on the cytochemical and morphological characteristics, strain S5-55 was identified as a Streptomyces species. The results of the numerical identification using the TAXON program confirmed that Streptomyces strain S5-55 was identical with Streptomyces humidus including in TAXON major cluster 19. The production of antifungal substance was most favorable when S. humidus strain S5-55 was cultivated for 10 dats on soluble starch broth supplemented with $K_2$HPO$_4$. The antifungal substances active against the plant pathogenic fungi P. capsici and M. grisea were partially purified using $\textrm{C}_{18}$ reversed-phase column chromatography.