The effect of bidirectional solid fermentation of Irpex lacteus and Chinese herbal medicines on alterations in antifungal activity.

Bidirectional solid fermentation can augment the therapeutic efficacy of Chinese herbal medicines by increasing their bioactive constituents. Chinese herbal medicines demonstrate specific antifungal properties. The potential of bidirectional solid fermentation to augment the antifungal efficacy of Chinese herbal treatments against plant-pathogenic fungi remains unexamined. This study employed bidirectional solid fermentation utilizing Irpex lacteus and eight traditional Chinese herbal medicines to investigate alterations in antifungal efficacy. The findings indicated that I. lacteus had comparatively fast development on the majority of Chinese herbal medicine substrates. Bidirectional solid fermentation markedly improved antifungal efficacy across the majority of substrates. The ethanol extract of Origanum vulgare, fermented for 10 d, exhibited an inhibition rate against most plant-pathogenic fungi equivalent to that of carbendazim at the same dose. The correlation analysis indicated a favorable association between total terpenoid concentration and antifungal efficacy. The metabolomic investigation indicated that, relative to the unfermented control, the metabolites considerably elevated in Origanum vulgare after 10 d of fermentation were primarily terpenoids, including pseudolaric acid B and prednisolone acetate, whereas the significantly decreased metabolites were primarily shikimic acid and phenylpropanoids, such as salvianolic acid C and icariside I. The KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes)  pathway enrichment analyses revealed that the most significantly enriched pathway was tyrosine metabolism. These findings will help facilitate the creation of prospective biocontrol agents, therefore offering sustainable alternatives for crop disease management.