Isolation and characterization of antimicrobial substance macrolactin a produced from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens CHO104 isolated from soil

A strain antagonistic to Fusarium solani, CHO104, was selected from approximately 100 microorganisms isolated from soil. Strain CHO104 was identified as Bacillus amyloliquefaciens and found to be Gram-positive based on the Biolog system and 16S rRNA methods. A culture broth of B. amyloliquefaciens CHO104 also exhibited antimicrobial activity against various microorganisms. As such, the EtOAc extract of the culture broth was isolated by various column chromatographic procedures and HPLC. The antimicrobial and antifungal substance was then characterized as macrolactin A (C24H34O5) using high-resolution EI-MS and NMR analyses, and found to be very effective in inhibiting the growth of Staphylococcus aureus, E. coli, and Botrytis cinerea, even when using a concentration of one-twentieth of the benzoic acid as the control compound.