This investigation presents a novel finding showing the effect of culture filtrates (CFs) of macrofungi, Ganoderma lucidum, against Meloidogyne incognita evaluated in vitro and in planta. To determine the nematicidal activity, juveniles of M. incognita were exposed to Ganoderma CFs of three different ages (Two, four and eight weeks old) of pileus and stipe at different concentrations, i.e., 100%, 50%, 10% and 1% for different time intervals (12, 24, 48 and 72 h). Ganoderma species were examined morphologically based on external appearance and analytically using SEM. The ethanolic samples of basidiocarp were prepared and analyzed for in vitro nematicidal assay and different bioactive compounds. The in vitro experiment results revealed that among all three ages of pileus and stipe, two-week-old pileus and stipe exhibited great nematotoxic potency and caused 83.8% and 73.8% juveniles’ mortality at 100% concentration after 72 h of exposure time, respectively. Similarly, the two-week-old pileus and stipe showed the highest egg hatching inhibition of 89.2% and 81.0% at the 100% concentration after five days. The eight-week-old pileus and stipe were not more effective than the two- and four-week-old pileus and stipe. The metabolites were characterized using GC-MS, including sugar alcohol, steroids, silanes, glucosides, pyrones, ester, oleic acid, phthalic acid, linoleic acid, palmitates and ketones. The in planta study conducted in the greenhouse demonstrated that the root dip treatment for 30 min with Ganoderma CFs curtailed the infection level of M. incognita and promoted the eggplant plant growth. The maximum percent increase in plant length, plant fresh weight, plant dry weight, total chlorophyll, carotenoids and yield/plant was obtained at 100% conc. of fungus CFs, whereas a reduction was observed in nematode infestation parameters. It was concluded from the study that Ganoderma CFs can be explored as an effective and eco-friendly antinemic biocontrol agent in fields infected with root-knot nematodes.

To date, several transcriptomic studies during fruit development have been reported, however no comprehensive integrated study on expression diversity, alternative splicing and metabolomic profiling was reported inCapsicum. This study analyzed RNA-seq data and untargeted metabolomic profiling from early green (EG), mature green (MG) and breaker (Br) fruit stages from twoCapsicumspecies i.e.C. annuum (Cann)andC. frutescens (Cfrut)from Northeast India. A total of 117416 and 96802 alternatively spliced events (AltSpli-events) were identified fromCannandCfrut, respectively. Among AltSpli-events, intron retention (IR; 32.2%Cannand 25.75%Cfrut) followed by alternative acceptor (AA; 15.4%Cannand 18.9%Cfrut) were the most abundant inCapsicum. Around, 7600 genes expressed in at least one fruit stages ofCannandCfrut, were AltSpli. The study identified spliced variants of genes including transcription factors (TFs) involved in fruit development/ripening(Aux/IAA 16-like, ETR, SGR1, ARF, CaGLK2, ETR, CaAGL1, MADS-RIN, FUL1, SEPALLATA1), carotenoid(PDS, CA1, Ccs, CCD4, NCED3, xanthoxin dehydrogenase, CaERF82, CabHLH100, CaMYB3R-1, SGR1, CaWRKY28, CaWRKY48, CaWRKY54)and capsaicinoids biosynthesis(CaMYB48, CHS, CaWRKY51), which were significantly differentially spliced (DS) between consecutiveCapsicumfruit stages. Also, this study observed that differentially expressed isoforms (DEiso) from 38 genes with differentially spliced events (DSE) were significantly enriched in various metabolic pathways such as starch and sucrose metabolism, amino-acid metabolism, cysteine cutin suberin and wax biosynthesis, and carotenoid biosynthesis. Furthermore, the metabolomic profiling revealed that metabolites from aforementioned pathways such as carbohydrates (mainly sugars such as D-fructose, D-galactose, maltose and sucrose), organic acids (carboxylic acids) and peptide groups significantly altered during fruit development. Taken together, our findings could help in alternative splicing-based targeted studies of candidate genes involved in fruit development and ripening inCapsicumcrop.