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Garlic is a health promoter that has important bioactive compounds. The bioactive extraction is an important step in the analysis of constituents present in plant preparations. The purpose of this study is to optimize the extraction with the best proportion of solvents to obtain total phenolic compounds (TPC) and thiosulfinates (TS) from dried garlic powder, and evaluate the antioxidant activities of the optimized extracts. A statistical mixture simplex axial design was used to evaluate the effect of solvents (water, ethanol, and acetone), as well as mixtures of these solvents, after two ultrasound extraction cycles of 15 min. Results showed that solvent mixtures with a high portion of water and pure water were efficient for TPC and TS recovery through this extraction procedure. According to the regression model computed, the most significant solvent mixtures to obtain high TPC and TS recovery from dried garlic powder are, respectively, the binary mixture with 75% water and 25% acetone and pure water. These optimized extracts presented oxygen radical absorbance capacity. Pure water was better for total antioxidant capacity, and the binary mixture of water-acetone (75:25) was better for DPPH scavenging activity. These optimized extracts can be used for industrial and research applications.

Garlic (Allium sativum L.) is one of the crops whose economic importance has increased considerably in recent years in Brazil. The use of plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) is a useful alternative for reducing the cost of agricultural inputs and, consequently, for increasing productivity. Therefore, the main objective of this work was to isolate and evaluate potential growth promoters in plants and plant pathogenic fungi growth inhibitors using endophytic bacteria from garlic roots and bacteria from the Agricultural Microbiology Culture Collection at the Federal University of Lavras. Besides verifying improvements in the growth and physiology of garlic meristems grown in vitro under the action of PGPB. Forty-eight endophytic bacteria were identified using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry based on the protein profile of each isolate. Four isolates were chosen according to their ability to fix nitrogen, to produce auxin and solubilize phosphate. The cultivation of garlic meristems in tissue culture with these bacteria was established at a population level of 10 6 CFU/mL. The evaluated criteria were: (1) the colonization capacity of the bacteria inside the garlic plants determined through scanning electron microscopy; (2) the chlorophyll content; and (3) the growth of garlic plants in vitro post-PGPB inoculation. Volatiles emitted by those isolates inhibited fungi growth. The inoculation of garlic meristems with Enterobacter cloacae and Burkholderia cepacia promoted an improvement in the growth and physiological attributes of garlic, indicating the feasibility of their application as plant growth promoters for commercial cultivation., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.)

Garlic (Allium sativum L.) plays an important role in popular culture due to its dietary and medicinal uses. It is also used to produce a wide range of pharmacologically interesting molecules. Several pathogens affect garlic plants, especially Athelia (Sclerotium) rolfsii, a fungus that is widespread and causes large economic losses. It causes direct damage to crops and leads to plant stress, which induces secondary metabolite production in plants. The use of microorganisms as biocontrol agents may induce the production of beneficial metabolites in plants that will protect it and promote resistance to pathogen attack. In addition to suppressing disease, biological control agents may have elicitor effects that could induce an increase in the production of useful bioactive secondary metabolites in plants, some of which may be of pharmacological interest. Therefore, the search for new biological control agents should also consider their potential as elicitor agents. This paper presents an analysis of the biological control of Athelia (Sclerotium) rolfsii by antagonistic microrganisms, the potential of yeasts and bacteria of the genus Bacillus for the biocontrol of phytopathogens, microrganisms influence in nutritional and bioactive compounds content of interest to the pharmaceutical industry.