Research Paper

Egypt. Acad. J. Biolog. Sci., 5(1): 1-9 (2013) Email:[e-mail] Received: 20/1/2013

G. Microbiology ISSN: 2090-0872 www.eajbs.eg.net

Antibacterial activity of endophytic fungi extracts from the medicinal plant Kigelia africana. Al-mahi Idris, Ietidal Al-tahir and Eihab Idris* Faculty of Science, University of Khartoum. P.O. Box 321, Postal Code 11115, Khartoum, Sudan. *Corresponding author: E-mail: [e-mail] ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to identify the endophytic fungi of the medicinal plant Kigelia africana (Lam) Benth. (Bignoniaceae) and to investigate their potential antimicrobial activity. Seven species of endophytic fungi were successfully isolated from K. Africana for the first time: including Cladosporium sp., Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus sp., Curvularia lunata as well as three unknown species. The fungal extracts were assessed for antibacterial activity against three standard pathogenic bacterial strains: Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. Most of the extracts showed in vitro inhibition of bacterial growth. The phytochemical screening revealed the existence of a diverse group of secondary metabolites in the crude extracts of the endophytic fungi that resemble those in the host plant extracts.
Keywords: Natural products; host-endophytes relationship; TLC screening; antibacterial assays; traditional medicine; fungal diversity

INTRODUCTION Endophytes are symbiotic microbial organisms that inhabit the interior of plants without causing an apparent harm to the host (Hirsch & Braun, 1992). Endophytes belong to diverse groups of bacteria and fungi (Bandara et al., 2006). Endophytic fungi are extremely ubiquitous; it is thought that the vast majority of plant species in natural ecosystems (if not all of them) harbor fungal endophytes (Rodriguez et al., 2009). Endophytic fungi are estimated to be represented by at least one million species residing in plants (Dreyfuss & Chapela, 1994).

References: Akunyili, D. N. and Houghto, P. J. (1993). Meroterpenoids. and 8 Al-mahi Idris et al. naphthoquinones from Kigelia pinnata Phytochemistry 32: 1015-18. Akunyili, D. N., Houghton, P. J. and Raman, A. (1991). Antimicrobial activities of the stem bark of Kigelia pinnata. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 35: 173-7. Bandara, W. M. M. S., Scncviratnc, G. and Kulasooriya, S. A. (2006). Interaction among endophytic bacteria and fungi: Effects and potentials. Journal of Bioscience. 31 (5): 645-650. Binutu, O. A, Adesogan, K. E. and Okogun, J. I. (1996). Antibacterial and antifungal compounds from Kigelia pinnata. Planta Medica 62: 352-353. Burkill, H. M. (1985). The useful plants of west Tropical Africa (use P.I WT Afr.) .1: 254-257. Coates-Palgrave, K. (1988). Trees of southern Africa, edn 2. Struik, Cape Town De Siqueira, V. M., Conti, R., de Araújo, J. M., Souza-Motta, C. M. (2011). Endophytic fungi from the medicinal plant Lippia sidoides Cham. and their antimicrobial activity. Symbiosis 53: 89-95. Dreyfuss, M. M. & Chapela, I. H. (1994). Potential of fungi in the discovery of novel low-molecular weight pharmaceuticals. In: The discovery of natural products with therapeutic potential (e.d. Gullo V. P.). Butterworth-Heinemann, London, UK: 49-80. El Ghazali, G.E.B., El Tohami, M.S. and El Egami, A.A.B. (1997). Medicinal plants of Sudan. Part III. Medicinal plants of the eastern Nuba Mountains. Khartoum University Press. Khartoum. El Kamali, H. H. and Khalid, S. A. (1996). The most common herbal remedies in Central Sudan. Fitoterapia 2: 301-306. Fabry, W., Okemo, P. O. and Ansorg, R. (1998). Antibacterial activity of East African medicinal plants. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 60: 79-84. Guo, B., Dai, J., Ng, S., Huang, Y., Leong, C., Ong, W. and Carté, B. K. (2000). Cytonic Acids A and B:  Novel Tridepside Inhibitors of hCMV Protease from the Endophytic Fungus Cytonaema Species. Journal of Natural products 63: 602-604. Hirsch, G. U. and Braun, U. (1992). Communities of parasitic microfungi. In: Handbook of vegetation science: Fungi in vegetation science. Vol. 19. (ed. W. Winterhoff). Kluwer academic, Dordrecht, Netherlands: 225-250. Horn, W. S., M. S. J. Simmonds, R. E. Schwartz, and W. M. Blaney. (1995). Phomopsichalasin, a novel antimicrobial agent from an endophytic Phomopsis sp. Tetrahedron 14:3969–3978. Huang, W. Y., Cai, W. Z., Hyde, K. D., Corke, H. and Sun, M. (2008). Biodiversity of endophytic fungi associated with 29 traditional Chinese medicinal plants. Fungal Diversity 33, 61-75. Jackson, S. J., Hougthon, P. J., Tetsas, S. and Photion, A. (2000). In vitro cytotoxicity of novoburtinal and isopinnatal from Kigelia pinnata against cancer cell lines Planta Medica 66: 758-61. Joffe, P. (2003). Kigelia Africana (Lam) Benth. Pretoria National Botanical Garden Kavanagh, F. (1972). Analytical microbiology, vol. II. Academic press, New York and London. pp.11. Moreno, E., Varughese, T., Spadafora, C., Arnold, E., Coley, P. D., Kursar, T. A., Gerwick, W. H., and CubillaRiosa, L. (2011). Chemical Constituents of the New Endophytic Fungus Mycosphaerella sp. nov. and Their Anti-Parasitic Activity. Natural product communications 6: 835-840. Musa, S. M. F. E., Abdelrasool, E. A., Elsheikh, L. A. M. N., Ahmed, A. E,. The endophytic fungi of Kigelia africana 9 Mahmoud and Yagi, S .M . (2011). Ethnobotanical study of medicinal plants in the Blue Nile State, Southeastern Sudan. Journal of Medicinal Plants Research 5: 4287-4297. Petrini O. (1986). Taxonomy of endophytic fungi of aerial plant tissues. In: Fokkema NJ, van den Huevel J, eds. Microbiology of the phyllosphere. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 175– 187. Rodriguez, R. J., White Jr, J. F., Arnold, A. E. and Redman, R. S. (2009). Fungal endophytes: diversity and functional roles. New Phytologist. doi: 10.1111/j.14698137.2009.02773.x Saikkonen, K., Faeth, S. H., Helander, M. and Sullivan, T. J. (1998). A continuum of interactions with host plants. Annual Reviews of Ecology and Systematics 29: 319-343. Saikkonen, K., Wali, P., Helander, M. and Faeth, S. H. (2004). Evolution of endophyte-plant symbiosis. Trends in Plant Science 9: 275-280. Schulz, B., Boyle, C., Draeger, S., Römmert, A. and Krohn, K. (2002). Endophytic fungi: a source of novel biologically active secondary metabolites. Mycological Research 106: 996-1004. Stierle, A. and Strobel, G. A. (1993). Taxol and taxane production by Taxomyces andreanae. Science 260: 214-216. Strobel, G. A. and Daisy, B. (2003). Bioprospecting for Microbial Endophytes and Their Natural Products. Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews 67: 491502. Strobel, G. A., R. V. Miller, C. Miller, M. Condron, D. B. Teplow, and W. M. Hess. (1999). Cryptocandin, a potent antimycotic from the endophytic fungus Cryptosporiopsis cf. quercina. Microbiology 145:1919–1926. Tan, R. X., and W. X. Zou. (2001). Endophytes: a rich source of functional metabolites. Natural Product Reports 18:448–459. Van Wyk, B. E., Van Oudtshoorn, B. and Gericke, N. (1997). Medicinal plants of South Africa. Briza Publications, Pretoria. Verma, V. C., Gond, S. K., Kumar, A., Kharwar, R. N., Strobel, G. (2007). The Endophytic Mycoflora of Bark, Leaf, and Stem Tissues of Azadirachta indica A. Juss (Neem) from Varanasi (India). Microbial Ecology 54: 119-125.