EVALUATION OF BEAUVERIA BASSIANA FOR ITS ANTIBACTERIAL POTENTIAL

Abstract

Most of the pathogenic bacterial strains have developed resistance against the commonly
used antibacterial drugs. This problem is increasing at an alarming rate and has urged
upon the need to search for novel antibacterial compounds from natural sources.
Entomopathogenic fungi have proved to be very promising candidates as they are known
to produce a vast array of bioactive compounds. Screening the antibacterial potential of
such compounds has lead to the discovery of efficiently active compounds in past
researches. But the entomopathogenic flora needs to be explored more for such
compounds. Therefore, the focus of this study was to determine the antibacterial activity of
secondary metabolite of Beauveria bassiana using the agar well diffusion method. It was
found that secondary metabolite exhibited maximum antibacterial activity after 21 days of
incubation. The activity was highest against Escherichia coli MTCC 1679 and was good
against Pseudomonas aeruginosa MTCC 6204 and Bacillus subtilis MTCC 441. But it was
poor against Salmonella typhi MTCC 733. The zones of inhibition obtained against them
were 30mm, 24mm, 18mm and 6mm respectively. However no activity was expressed
against Klebsiella pneumoniae MTCC 4032. Thus results of this research work reveal that
entomopathogenic fungal isolate Beauveria bassiana could be used for production of
broad spectrum and eco-friendly antibacterial compounds.