Fumigant activity of essential oils and components of Illicium verum and Schizonepeta tenuifolia against Botrytis cinerea and Colletotrichum gloeosporioides.

To develop a natural fungicide against Botrytis cinerea and Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, a total of 25 essential oils were tested for their fumigant activity against post-harvest pathogens. The vaporous phases of oils were treated to each fungus on potato dextrose agar medium in half-plate separated Petri plates at 10 microg per plate. The essential oil of Illicium verum strongly inhibited the mycelial growth of both B. cinerea and C. gloeosporioides by over 90%. On the other hand, the essential oil of Schizonepeta tenuifolia showed inhibitory activity against mycelial growth of only B. cinerea by over 90%. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and bioassay indicated trans-anethole in I. verum and menthone in S. tenuifolia as a major antifungal constituent. The essential oils of I. verum and S. tenuifolia and their major constituents could be used to manage post-harvest diseases caused by B. cinerea and C. gloeosporioides.

Isolation and antifungal activity of lignans from Myristica fragrans against various plant pathogenic fungi.

BACKGROUND: In a search for plant extracts with potent in vivo antifungal activity against various plant diseases, we found that treatment with a methanol extract of Myristica fragrans Houttyn (nutmeg) seeds reduced the development of various plant diseases. The objectives of the present study were to isolate and determine antifungal substances from My. fragrans and to evaluate their antifungal activities. RESULTS: Three antifungal lignans were isolated from the methanol extract of My. fragrans seeds and identified as erythro-austrobailignan-6 (EA6), meso-dihydroguaiaretic acid (MDA) and nectandrin-B (NB). In vitro antimicrobial activity of the three lignans varied according to compound and target species. Alternaria alternata, Colletotrichum coccodes, C. gloeosporioides, Magnaporthe grisea, Agrobacterium tumefaciens, Acidovorax konjaci and Burkholderia glumae were relatively sensitive to the three lignans. In vivo, all three compounds effectively suppressed the development of rice blast and wheat leaf rust. In addition, EA6 and NB were highly active against the development of barley powdery mildew and tomato late blight, respectively. Both MDA and NB also moderately inhibited the development of rice sheath blight. CONCLUSION: This is the first study to demonstrate the in vitro and in vivo antifungal activities of the three lignans from My. fragrans against plant pathogenic fungi.

Enhanced tolerance of transgenic potato plants expressing both superoxide dismutase and ascorbate peroxidase in chloroplasts against oxidative stress and high temperature.

Oxidative stress is a major damaging factor for plants exposed to environmental stresses. In order to develop transgenic potato plants with enhanced tolerance to environmental stress, the genes of both Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase and ascorbate peroxidase were expressed in chloroplasts under the control of an oxidative stress-inducible SWPA2 promoter (referred to as SSA plants). SSA plants showed enhanced tolerance to 250 microM methyl viologen, and visible damage in SSA plants was one-fourth that of non-transgenic (NT) plants that were almost destroyed. In addition, when SSA plants were treated with a high temperature of 42 degrees C for 20 h, the photosynthetic activity of SSA plants decreased by only 6%, whereas that of NT plants decreased by 29%. These results suggest that the manipulation of the antioxidative mechanism of the chloroplasts may be applied in the development of industrial transgenic crop plants with increased tolerance to multiple environmental stresses.

Screening extracts of Achyranthes japonica and Rumex crispus for activity against various plant pathogenic fungi and control of powdery mildew.

Methanol extracts of fresh materials of 183 plants were screened for in vivo antifungal activity against Magnaporthe grisea, Corticium sasaki, Botrytis cinerea, Phytophthora infestans, Puccinia recondita and Erysiphe graminis f sp hordei. Among them, 33 plant extracts showed disease-control efficacy of more than 90% against at least one of six plant diseases. The methanol extracts of Achyranthes japonica (whole plant) and Rumex crispus (roots) at concentrations greater than 11 g fresh weight of plant tissue per litre of aqueous Tween 20 solution effectively controlled the development of barley powdery mildew caused by E graminis f sp hordei in an in vivo assay using plant seedlings. At a concentration of 300 g fresh weight of plant tissue per litre of Tween 20 solution, the two extracts were as efficient as the fungicide fenarimol (30 mg litre(-1)) and more active than the fungicide polyoxin B (100 and 33 mg litre(-1)) against Sphaerotheca fuliginea on cucumber plants in glasshouse trials.