ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Cell Biology
This article is part of the Research TopicMechanobiology of Plant Cell Wall Remodeling Under Mechanical StressView all articles
Eco-Friendly Control of Fusarium Wilt in Tomato: Molecular Docking and Functional Analysis of ZnO Nanoparticles and Biostimulants
Provisionally accepted
Yasmin M. Heikal1*
Amal M. Albahi1Hala M. Abdelmigid2Amal A. Alyamani2
Naglaa Elshafey3Hoda M. Soliman1Samia A. Haroun1- 1Mansoura University Faculty of Science, Mansoura, Egypt
- 2Taif University College of Science, Taif, Saudi Arabia
- 3Arish University Faculty of Agricultural Science, Arish, Egypt
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In Solanum lycopersicum L. plant, Fusarium oxysporum is a fungal pathogen that leads to heavy tomato losses and severe wilting (FW). This investigation was planned to control F. oxysporum through some resistance inducers including salicylic acid (SA)( 0, 0.4, 0.5, and 0.6 mM), humic acid (HA)(0, 50, 100, and 150 mg/L), zinc nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) (0, 100, 250, and 500 mg/L) applications on 35 days-old of tomato plantlets and compared to the negative and positive controls. The selected Fusarium strain was identified at the molecular level using 18S rRNA analysis and assigned with accession number FO-A1 (OM321440). Their antifungal efficacy was demon-strated by the inhibition of F. oxysporum growth in vitro, improved plant growth under greenhouse conditions in vivo, increased antioxidant activity (TAC), total protein and carbohydrate levels, and phenolic content (TPC) in-flicted by the fungus. The most effective treatment was 500 mg/L of ZnO-NPs, which reduced disease incidence to 65% and disease severity to 1.0, compared to the inoculated control. In addition to in silico investigations of bi-ostimulants and ZnO-NPs against lanosterol 14-alpha-demethylase (CYP51), the principal target of antifungal agents, the binding affinities were determined to be -5.0 and -2.4 Kcal/mol for salicylic acid and humic acid, respectively. ZnO-NPs exhibited metal interaction with the amino acid residues of CYP51, with a binding energy of -2.19 Kcal/mol, indicating the inhibitory potential of biostimulants and ZnO-NPs. By integrating these state-of-the-art methods, this study enhances the existing body of knowledge in the field, addressing crucial gaps in sustainable disease management and offering alternatives to conventional approaches.
Keywords: Solanum lycopersicum, Humic acid, Salicylic Acid, molecular docking, Nanoparticles, Fusarium oxysporum
Received: 15 Sep 2025; Accepted: 24 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Heikal, Albahi, Abdelmigid, Alyamani, Elshafey, Soliman and Haroun. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yasmin M. Heikal
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