Diversity and Biopotential of Endophytic Fungal Flora Isolated from Eight Medicinal Plants of Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

Endophytic fungi are hidden diversity mines of microbes that reside in the healthy and symptomless interior of plant tissues without causing any harmful effects. This chapter focuses on fungal endophytic diversity of eight medicinal plants of Uttar Pradesh, India with their biopotential ability. Total of 4,002 (38.38 % CF) endophytic isolates were recovered from 10,425 segments representing 131 endophytic fungal species belonging to different fungal classes. Out of 4,002 isolates, hyphomycetes were more pronounced with 71.43 % recovery followed by coelomycetes 16.61 %, ascomycetes 6.59 %, mycelia sterilia or unidentified 5.32 % and least from zygomycetes 0.020 %. Among total endophytic fungal species isolated, Cladosporium cladosporioides (3.39 % CF) was found to be the most dominated taxa followed by Alternaria alternata (2.35 % CF), Curvularia lunata (2.13 % CF), Aspergillus niger (1.95 % CF), Chaetomium globosum (1.85 % CF), Nigrospora oryzae (1.57 % CF) and Phoma glomerata (1.09 % CF). From a total of 131 endophytic species, 101 were tested for their antimicrobial and antioxidant activity. Out of 47 active species, 29.78 % displayed antibacterial activity, 27.65 % showed antifungal activity, 38.29 % exhibited antibacterial and antifungal activity both while only 4.25 % displayed antimalarial as well as antioxidant activity. Twenty-one endophytic fungal species were tested for extracellular production of amylase, xylanase and phosphate solubilization where 76.19 % found to produce amylase, 23.80 % for xylanase and 14.28 % exhibited phosphate-solubilization activity.