TY - JOUR T1 - Screening of tomato seed bacterial endophytes for antifungal activity reveals lipopeptide producing <em>Bacillus siamensis</em> as a potential bio-control agent JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2020.10.09.332627 SP - 2020.10.09.332627 AU - Ayushi Sharma AU - Nutan Kaushik AU - Abhishek Sharma AU - Abhay Bajaj AU - Mandar Rasane AU - Yogesh S. Shouche AU - Takwa Marzouk AU - Naceur Djébali Y1 - 2020/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/10/09/2020.10.09.332627.abstract N2 - The current study investigates the diversity pattern and fungicidal potential of bacterial endophytes isolated from two different organic varieties of tomato plants (V1 and V2). A total of seventy-four bacterial isolates identified by 16S rRNA sequencing revealed a single genus Bacillus with 16 different species. The Shannon diversity H’ (1.45), Simpson’s index of diversity (0.9), Magalef’ index (2.1), Evenness (0.96), and Species richness (8) indicated the high endophytic bacterial diversity in the V1 variety of the tomato. Bacterial endophytes isolated from both the varieties were screened for their antifungal activity against five economically critical fungal pathogens (viz., Botrytis cinerea, Rhizoctonia solani, Fusarium solani, Verticillium lateritium, and Alternaria solani) of tomato crop through dual culture assay. The data revealed B. siamensis KCTC 13613(T) as the most potent antagonist significantly (p &lt; 0.05), inhibiting the mycelial growth between 75 to 90% against selected fungal pathogens. High bioactivity of lipopeptide extract of B. siamensis was recorded against R. solani with IC50 value of 72 ppm. The UPLC-HDMS analysis of this lipopeptide extract revealed the presence of, Surfactin and Bacillomycin D.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -