Fungal endophytes of some medicinal plant growing in northwestern coast of Egypt: Isolation, identification and two-way clustering analysis of its antimicrobial activity

Abstract

\n One of hidden mine of antibiotics is endophytic fungi especially that inhibited medicinal plants. In this regard, leaves, stems, fruits and bulbs of some commonly medicinal plants growing in Northwestern coast of Egypt were subjected for isolation of endophytic fungi with screening study of its antimicrobial activity. Practically, more than one hundred (101) endophytic fungal species isolated from Scorpiurus muricatus, Mellilotus indicus, Lotus polyphyllos, Ononis vaginalis, Nicotiana glauca, Lycium europaeum, Asphodelus aestivus, Echium angustifolium,Fagonia cretica, Pancratium maritimum,and Carduus getulus were tested in vitro for their antimicrobial activities against E. coli, Pseudomonas argenosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilus, Candida albicanus, Candida glabrata, Penicillium expansum, Aspergillus flavus. The values of applied diversity indices revealed significant differences in presence, absence and abundance among endophytic fungal isolates. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to report of Alternaria pluriseptata as endophytic species with most dominant and most active in its anitimicrobial activity among the isolated species. Seven distinctive groups were revealed from the two-way cluster analysis showing the intensity of antimicrobial activity against tested pathogens: Twenty-five percent of the isolates (26 strains assembled together in group V) exhibited no antimicrobial activity against all tested pathogens while six percent (6 isolates) assembled in group VII revealed high antimicrobial activity against five pathogens.