Vol. 11, Issue 11 (2022)

Melons, were oppressively afflicted by infection of powdery mildew. P. xanthii is a major causative agent of powder mildew in melons. Chitin deacetylase is a potential target for development of new fungicides to control the P. xanthii infection, since it is involved in the evading of pathogen from plant immunity. Chemical fungicides were paramount to control powdery mildew in melons where these fungi develop the resistance to the available fungicides. Hence there is an urgent need to develop newer fungicides to control the infection of P. xanthii. In our study, the domains localized in CDA were identified and interaction of colchicine to catalytic active domains was studied using molecular interaction studies. This study revealed the binding of colchicine to NodB domain a catalytic domain of CDA with least binding energy. Further, the stability of CDA-colchicine complex was assessed using normal mode analysis, which confirmed the high stability of complex. Based on the molecular interaction and stability analysis it was evident that colchicine can used for the development of potential fungicides to control powdery mildew in cucurbits.