Characterization of bacterial strains from bacterial culture collection of rice sheath in Burundi highlights an Alcaligenes species strain with antibacterial activity against Pseudomonas fuscovaginae rice pathogen

The sheath rot rice disease is known to be associated to Pseudomonas fuscovaginae and a recent study on the symptomatic of sheath rot revealed that this bacterial pathogen is abundant in highland rice ecology cultivation in Burundi. From asymptomatic samples of sheath rice, a collection of bacterial isolates and culturable microbiome have been carried out. A comparison between the culturable microbiome and total microbiome was made. Phenotypic assays in vitro on the bacterial isolates were performed after identification at the genus level of each bacterial isolate by sequencing of 16S RNA gene. A bacterial isolate belonging to Alcaligenes genus has antibacterial activity against the rice sheath rot pathogen P. fuscovaginae in vitro conditions.   Key words: Pseudomonas fuscovaginae, sheath rot, microbiome, Alcaligenes species.