High-Throughput Screening Assays to Identify Plant Natural Products with Antifungal Properties Against Fusarium
Yong Zhang1,2, Pei-Lun Kao1, Akaansha Rampal1
1Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA.
Abstract:
Fusarium oxysporum is a cross-kingdom fungal pathogen that not only causes devastating plant vascular diseases but can also opportunistically infect humans. Here we describe two high-throughput screening assays, a resazurin cell viability assay and an optical density assay, to screen natural products from cultured plant cells with antifungal properties against a clinical isolate of F. oxysporum. After elicitation by applying methyl jasmonate or by co-culture with F. oxysporum, as an abiotic elicitor and a biotic elicitor, respectively, we identified three cell lines that produce materials that inhibit fungal growth. Our procedure validates the powerful potential of combining high-throughput methods for the discovery of novel anti-pathogenic leads.
