Volatile organic compounds of plant-associated bacteriato reduce microbial contamination on clean room textile

Abstract: Since the appearance of multi-drug resistant pathogens, it is a significant issue to findnew innovative antibiotics that can solve this problem. Source for new antimicrobials arenaturally occurring antagonists like plant endophytes. Bacterial plant endophytes have to protecttheir niche from other bacteria by producing antibiotics. Natural antagonistic endophytes frompumpkin and mistletoe were tested against the most common pathogens in clean rooms in orderto identify antagonists that produce new antibiotics. The focus was on VOCs (volatile organiccompounds); gaseous antibiotics emitted by bacteria, which could demonstrate a potent weaponagainst pathogens. Clean room textile is intended to hinder particles and microbes to contaminatethe clean room environment. There is a great demand for new routes of decontamination of cleanroom equipment and garments. We could demonstrate for the first time that selected antagonistshowed a high activity against clean room derived pathogens and that VOC-producingantagonists were found to inhibit the growth of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia on clean roomtextiles.