BACTERIAL – PATHOGENIC FUNGAL INTERACTIONS: FINDING BACTERIAL COMPONENTS TO INHIBIT RICE BLAST

Harsh BaisRice is an extremely important food source for billions of people around the world. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the rice supply must double to meet the global demand by the year 2050. A huge barrier to this goal is crop loss due to rice blast. The rice blast is caused by a deleterious fungal pathogen, Magnaporthe oryzae, that accounts for about 30% loss of global rice yields. Pseudomonas chlororaphis EA105 (hereafter EA105), which was isolated from the rhizospheric soil of California rice cultivar M104, has been shown to significantly diminish the size of rice blast lesions by inducing a systemic response in the plants. Magnaporthe oryzae’s specialized infection cells called appressoria are also inhibited by EA105. Because of these abilities, the bacterium P. chlororaphis EA105 could be the key to solving the rice blast epidemic. This research was aimed towards finding the components of EA105 which work in preventing M. oryzae from infecting rice plants. EA105 was grown together with M. oryzae in standard media as well as media containing various rice plant extracts. Characteristics of the interactions involved in the inhibition of rice blast were able to be hypothesized with the data obtained. However, this research is still in progress and much more has yet to be determined about the components of EA105 which inhibit rice blast.Biological Science