GENETIC MUTATION OF PSEUDOMONAS AERUGINOSA OM13 TO IMPROVE ITS PRODUCTION OF ANTIFUNGAL COMPOUND

The ability of P. aeruginosa OM13 in antagonizing or inhibiting the growth of some phytopathogenic fungi was tested by measuring the inhibition zone for the growth of the tested fungi (Alternaria alternata and Rhizoctonia solani) caused by the growth of the bacterial isolate (P. aeruginosa OM13 ) and by the action of the culture filtrate of this isolate on test fungi. It was found that this isolate inhibit the growth of the test fungi and the inhibition zones were 5mm, 7mm for Alternaria alternata and Rhizoctonia solani, respectively. To improve the antifungal compound production by P. aeruginosa OM13, it was treated with mutagenic agent nitrosoguanidine (MNNG). The results showed that the production of 5 isolates were highly increased, in which RA5 gave the highest inhibition zone and O.D520nm values when compared with other. An attempt to characterize the partially purified antifungal compound produced by P. aeruginosa OM13 by using infrared (IR), UV absorbance and Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) were done and the results showed that the compound appeared as a single dark spot on a TLC plate under UV-light that had Rf value 0.32 from IR, UV analysis. It was confirmed that the compound was aromatic and contain aliphatic group. It can be concluded that the active antifungal compound might be either pyocyanine which is a derivative of the antibiotic phenazine or might be a new derivative of phenazine.