Abstract
This study aimed to explore the antioxidant potential and antiviral activity of endophytic fungi which were isolated from healthy living tissues of medicinal plants. Endophytic strains (29 different taxa) were isolated from 18 Egyptian medicinal plants collected from Saint Katherine Protectorate, Egypt. The fungal endophytes were identified based on morphological characters. All isolates were identified as ascomycetes, except two Zygomycetes strains (Absidia corymbifera and Mucor fuscus). Isolated endophytes were cultivated on potato dextrose media. The fungal metabolites were extracted by ethyl acetate and examined for their biological activities. Among 99 total extracts, only Chaetomium globosum, which was isolated from Adiantum capillus, showed a promising DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) scavenging activity (99% at 100 µg/mL). Fifteen extracts prohibited the reproduction of HSV-2 virus. On the other hand, the reproduction of VSV-virus was inhibited by sixteen endophytic extracts. The promising anti-(HSV-2 and VSV) extract of endophytic Pleospora tarda strain; that was originally isolated from the medicinal plant Ephedra aphylla, showed viral inhibitory activity of 40.7% and 15.2%, respectively. Two compounds, for which antiviral activates could be attributed, were isolated and identified as alternariol and alternariol-(9)-methyl ether using different NMR techniques from P. tarda extract. For the first time, we report here the ability of the endophytic fungus P. tarda to produce alternariol and alternariol-(9)-methyl ether. The results indicate that the endophytic fungi from medicinal plants are promising sources of bioactive compounds.
Highlights
We evaluated the antioxidant potential and the antiviral effect of the total metabolites produced by some endophytic fungi that inhabited Egyptian medicinal plants
Egyptian medicinal plants are well known for their applications in traditional medicine to cure many infectious diseases [7,8]
The healthy and disease-free samples were classified into seven families (Adiantaceae, Compositae, Ephedraceae, Euphorbiaceae, Hypericaceae, Labiatae, and Rubiaceae)
Summary
There is a global need for new antiviral compounds to solve drug resistance problems.The resistance of human disease to well-known (commercial) antibiotics is increasing rapidly nowadays, so discovering new alternative agents is indispensable required for management those maladies.Endophytes are relatively not well-studied microorganisms that recently gained importance due to their different biological activities and bioactive compounds with a high level of structural diversity [1,2,3,4].They are considered as a rich source of novel natural metabolites for exploitation in medicine, industry and agriculture [1,2,3,4,5].Fermentation 2018, 4, 49; doi:10.3390/fermentation4030049 www.mdpi.com/journal/fermentationThe medicinal plants are considered as one of the major reservoirs of endophytic bioactive metabolites for the use in the medicinal applications [2,3,4,6]. Endophytes are relatively not well-studied microorganisms that recently gained importance due to their different biological activities and bioactive compounds with a high level of structural diversity [1,2,3,4]. They are considered as a rich source of novel natural metabolites for exploitation in medicine, industry and agriculture [1,2,3,4,5].
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