Exploration of Secondary Metabolism Regulated by Polyketide Synthase Genes in the Entomopathogenic Fungus Beauveria Bassiana

Abstract

Modern technologies like pesticides and fertilisers have drastically improved agriculture yields in the previous decades. Now with ever increasing demands on agricultural production and environmental changes taking hold, the limits of these products are being reached. Furthermore, we are now seeing the negative downstream effects chemical or synthetic products have on the environments and communities involved in the agricultural industry. For example, pesticides can be harmful to humans and animals if they leak into the water tables and they often kill beneficial insects, like honeybees, along with the intended crop pest targets. In an overall push to make agricultural more sustainable researchers are turning to nature in order to find solutions to some of the industry's biggest challenges. An international collaboration between researchers is combining multiple approaches to investigate how animals, plants and microbes in nature interact and, therefore, produce and use molecules that may have a benefit to farming. 'We believe that nature is complicated, but hard-wired,' says Dr Alongkorn Amnuaykanjanasin, a researcher at the National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Pathum Thani in Thailand. 'Microorganisms of a certain niche have a specific set of compounds that are used for survival and thriving in a specific environment,' he explains. It is these compounds that can potentially be exploited to replace farming products like pesticides.