Curvularialunata - a foliar pathogen of Musa paradisiaca causing leaf spot disease and GC MS analysis of toxic metabolites

In the Uttar Dinajpur District of West Bengal, between December 2022 and January 2023, field-grown banana trees were found to have leaf spot disease. Initially, the symptoms showed up as yellow-brown dots on the periphery and center of the leaves. Lesions might be small and dispersed throughout leaves, or they can cover huge areas of leaves thoroughly. From the samples of diseased leaves that were gathered, one fungal infectionwas recovered. A TEM picture of the leaves was taken to compare the interior structures of healthy banana plant leaves with those of banana leaves affected with the fungal infection C. lunata. Chloroplast and vacuole structures changed, and certain ballon-shaped structures were discovered that may have been caused by fungal isolate infection in leaves. To find the hazardous compounds that the organism released, GC-MS analysis was performed on the C. lunata culture filtrate. The culture filtrate of C. lunata was found to contain a number of toxic compounds, including hexadecanoic acid, benzonitrile, 1- 15-hydroxypentadecanoic acid, 2, 3, 3, 3-pentafluropropanoate, 5-tetradecene (E), 2-Dodecenc (Z), 2,4-D1-tert-butylphenol, 9-Octadecene (E), and 9-Eicosene (E), among others. The production of toxic chemicals by fungal pathogens may facilitate the diseases' ability to infect healthy plant sections and cause disease.The present study focuses on giving an idea of the most probable toxic metabolites responsible for the pathogenicity of the fungus Curvularialunata.