TITLE:
Alpha-Tomatin against Witches’ Broom Disease
AUTHORS:
Luiz Humberto Gomes, Keila Maria Roncato Duarte, Felipe Gabriel Andrino, Gildemberg Amorin Leal Jr., Lia Matelli Garcia, Antonio Figueira, Simone Possedente de Lira
KEYWORDS:
Cocoa; Glycoalkaloids; Solanaceae
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.5 No.5,
March
11,
2014
ABSTRACT: Several plants use secondary metabolites against
insects and pathogens attack. Among such metabolites known glycoalkaloids are
the most studied. Plants from Solanaceae Family are the most abundant on those
alkaloids. Despite alfa-tomatine is a known glycoalkaloid, its specific action
against Moniliophthora perniciosa,
fungi responsible for witches broom disease in cocoa plantations was obtained
in this work. Alfa-tomatine was infusion-extracted from Solanum lycopersicum leaves, and its action against the fungi
growth was shown on the bioassays. In these tests, M. perniciosa growth was totally inhibited but other fungus tested,
the inhibition was not totally, or did not present effect on growth, showing in
this way, the specificity of alfa-tomatine to M. perniciosa. The advantages of work with a natural molecule for
the fungi control is the stability of the molecule, its resistance to high
temperature and pressure and for its use, the simple method of extraction used.
The confirmation of the alfa-tomatine molecule was done by High Performance
Liquid Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry in comparison to the Sigma
standard.