Abstract
An antiviral producing bacterial strain was isolated from a ginseng rhizosphere in Kangwon province of Republic of Korea. In order to identify the bacterial strain, microbiological, physiological and biochemical tests were performed, along with RAPD, 16S rRNA, 16S-23S rRNA ITS (intergenic spacer region) and DNA-DNA hybridization analyses. The bacterium was found to be a strain of Pseudomonas fluorescens, which was designated as Gpf01. The strain was grown in Muller-Hinton (MH) broth, and the culture supernatant obtained was filtered through a $0.45{\mu}l$ filter. It was further boiled at $100^{\circ}C$ and tested in two experiments for its ability to control a yellow strain of Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV-Y). In the first experiment, boiled culture filtrate (RCF) was treated on one half of the leaves of Chenopodium amaranticolor followed by CMV- Y inoculation on both halves. In the second experiment, BCF was treated on the lower leaves of Nicotiana tobacum var. Xanthi-nc, with the CMV-Y mechanically inoculated onto the upper untreated leaves. In the first experiment, BCF treatment was able to considerably reduce the number of viral lesion, and in the second experiment, plants treated with BCF showed no visible viral symptoms compared to the Muller-Hinton (MH) media treated controls 15 days post inoculation (dpi), and remained symptomless throughout the study period. Thus, Gpf01, identified as P. fluorescence, was able to produce an antiviral component in the culture filtrate, which was found to be heat stable, non-phytotoxic and effective in local as well as systemic hosts of CMV.
