Evaluation of bioactive secondary metabolites from endophytic fungus Pestalotiopsis neglecta BAB-5510 isolated from leaves of Cupressus torulosa D.Don

Six endophytic fungi were isolated from Cupressus torulosa D.Don and identified phenotypically and genotypically. The fungal cultures were further grown and the culture was extracted by two organic solvents methanol and ethyl acetate. The screening was carried out using the agar well diffusion method against human pathogen such as Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus. Isolated strain of Pestalotiopsis sp. was showing prominent antibacterial activity. The crude methanol and ethyl acetate extract of Pestalotiopsis sp. showed MIC of 6.25 mg/mL for S. typhimurium and S. aureus which showed its efficacy as a potent antimicrobial. The phytochemical screening revealed the existence of a diverse group of secondary metabolites in the crude extracts of the endophytic fungi that resembled those in the host plant extracts. On the basis of phenotypic characteristics and rDNA sequencing of the ITS region of the endophyte was identified as P. neglecta which turned out to be a promising source of bioactive compounds. There is little known about endophytes from C. torulosa D.Don. In this paper we studied in detail the identification of isolated endophytic fungi P. neglecta from C. torulosa D.Don and characterization of its active metabolite compounds. The partially purified second fraction (PPF) extracted from the fungal culture supernatant was subjected to gas chromatography followed by mass spectrometry which revealed the presence of many phytochemicals. These results indicate that endophytic fungi P. neglecta isolated from medicinal plants could be a potential source for bioactive compounds and may find potential use in pharmaceutical industry.