ATTENUATION OF QUORUM SENSING ASSOCIATED VIRULENCE FACTORS AND BIOFILM FORMATION IN PSEUDOMONAS AERUGINOSA PAO1 BY PHOMA MULTI-ROSTRATA PUTY3, A SAPROPHYTIC FUNGUS, ISOLATED FROM CARICA PAPAYA

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the most emerging multidrug-resistant opportunistic pathogens, which poses a threat to immunocompromised patients. Treatment of P. aeruginosa in the affected patients has become difficult because of its ability to develop resistant strains against most of the conventional therapeutic antibiotics. Quorum sensing plays a crucial role in the virulence nature of P. aeruginosa as it helps the bacteria to produce virulence factors and biofilm formation. In the present study, we studied the quorum quenching potential of fungal secondary metabolites from the well-known fungus Phoma multirostrata PUTY3 strain isolated from Carica papaya. In this study, we have carried out both in-vitro and in-silico analyses of fungal secondary metabolites from P. multrirostrata against P. aeruginasa. The in-vitro analysis showed a marked decrease in the production of virulence factors such as pyocyanin, rhamnolipids, protease, elastase, exopolysaccharides, HCN gas production and biofilm formation. In addition to this, a significant inhibition in the motility factors of P. aeruginosa such as swimming, swarming, twitching was also observed. In-silico studies further validated the results, in which, docking of molecules, present in the GCMS analysis of fungal secondary metabolites, were carried out with the two main quorum sensing regulating proteins, viz., LasR and RhlR. These findings indicate a new anti-infective and alternative therapeutic approaches to combat the virulence factors of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and explore further the potential of fungal secondary metabolites from other saprophytic fungi colonizing decaying substrata of medicinal plants.