Exploring the mechanisms of endophytic bacteria for suppressing early blight disease in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.).

Controlling early blight of tomatoes using endophytic bacteria is an eco-friendly and sustainable approach to manage this common fungal disease caused by Alternaria solani, Alternaria alternata, and Curvularia lunata. Endophytic bacteria are microorganisms that live inside plant tissues without causing harm and can help protect the host plant from pathogens. In this work, twenty endophytic bacterial isolates from tomato healthy plants were tested against pathogenic fungal isolates that caused early blight disease in vitro. Out of the 20 tested isolates, three (B4, B7, and B17) were considered effective isolates against the growth of fungal pathogens. The three isolates were recognized as Enterobacter cloacae HS-6 (B4), Pseudomonas gessardii HS-5 (B 7), and Pseudomonas mediterranea HS-4 (B17) using 16s-rDNA sequencing. Different concentrations of bacterial cultural diltrates at 20, 40, and 60% were tested for their antagonistic effects on the development of pathogenic fungi in vitro. The lowest dry weights of pathogenic isolates in all bacterial culture filtrates were discovered at 60%. In all culture filtrates, phenolic compounds showed the largest peak area. Under greenhouse conditions, the least disease severity of tomato early blight was found for E. cloacae and its culture filtrate compared to other treatments. Real-time PCR was used to examine the expression pattern of the defense response gene ß-1.3 glucanase gene in infected tomato plants with pathogenic fungi (control) as well as its relations with efficient biocontrol agent (E. cloacae). The expression of the gene increased substantially and significantly after three days from the inoculation-infected plants with C. lunata and E. cloacae while it reached the maximum after five days from the inoculation with A. alternata, A. solani and E. cloacae. Our study concluded that the endophytic bacterial isolate E. cloacae can be considered a promising biocontrol agent for preventing tomato early blight.

Curvularia lunata as new causal pathogen of tomato early blight disease in Egypt.

Tomato plants displaying early blight symptoms were collected from different localities in the provinces of Assiut and Sohag, Egypt. The causal pathogens were isolated on potato dextrose agar plates. Pathogenicity tests with 48 isolates were carried out under greenhouse conditions on tomato cultivar (CV 844). All tested isolates caused symptoms of early blight disease with different degrees. The highest disease severity on tomato plants was found after inoculation with isolate No. 6 followed by isolates No. 20 and No. 31. The most pathogenic isolates were identified by sequence analysis using ITS1 and ITS4 primers. The analysis of the amplified sequences from fungal isolates No. 6, 20 and 31 displayed 99-100% nucleotide identity with Alternaria solani, Curvularia lunata and A. alternata, respectively. To our knowledge, this is the first report of Curvularia lunata as one of the causal pathogens of early blight disease of tomato plants in Egypt.