Abstract
Specific mechanisms contributing to the antifungal activity of α-thujone, one of the main compounds of essential oils in herbs, against Fusarium graminearum, which causes various diseases of cereals, were studied for the first time. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) value of α-thujone was 3.2 μg μL−1 for F. graminearum. Its toxigenic effect was confirmed by WST-1-based cytotoxicity assay. Due to α-thujone treatment, changes in genomic template stability (GTS), type II and III methylation profiles were detected. GTS rates were calculated as 89.33 and 94% according to random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter-retrotransposon amplified polymorphism (IRAP) assays, respectively. Mean values of polymorphisms were 28.92 and 36.42% by evaluating digestion profiles. Gene expression analysis showed α-thujone caused upregulation of mgv1, mst20 and cat genes but downregulation of tri5. Fold change values were 1.86 ± 0.14, 3.10 ± 0.03, 2.56 ± 0.078 and 0.43 ± 0.15 respectively. The acridine orange-ethidium bromide (Ao/Eb) and 2′,7′-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate (DCF-DA) staining assays revealed that α-thujone treatment triggers apoptosis and oxidative stress in F. graminearum at cellular level. Additionally, 6.51-fold increase in catalase activity in comparison with the control was detected. There were no statistically significant changes in water loss rates (WLRs) when Hordeum vulgare L. cv. Akhisar seedlings were treated with α-thujone. According to the water loss rate values, α-thujone is not a potential abiotic stress factor that negatively affects the physiological development of barley plantlets. Outcomes showed that α-thujone leads to serious morphological, genetic, epigenetic, cellular alterations on F. graminearum, so could be a candidate as an alternative herbal antifungal compound.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Therese Lee for providing fungal isolates.
Funding
This work was supported by Research Fund of the Istanbul University [grant numbers 58541]; and The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey [grant numbers 116Z871].
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Tuğba Teker: Conceptualization; Formal analysis; Investigation; Methodology; Software; Visualization; Writing - original draft; Writing - review & editing. Özlem Sefer: Conceptualization; Formal analysis; Investigation; Methodology; Visualization; Writing - original draft; Writing - review & editing. Aylin Gazdağlı: Conceptualization; Formal analysis; Investigation; Visualization. Emre Yörük: Conceptualization; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Validation; Visualization; Writing - original draft; Writing - review & editing. Gülin İnci Varol: Conceptualization; Formal analysis; Investigation; Visualization; Writing - review &editing. Gülruh Albayrak: Conceptualization; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Writing - review & editing.
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Teker, T., Sefer, Ö., Gazdağlı, A. et al. α-Thujone exhibits an antifungal activity against F. graminearum by inducing oxidative stress, apoptosis, epigenetics alterations and reduced toxin synthesis. Eur J Plant Pathol 160, 611–622 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-021-02269-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-021-02269-w