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. 2019 Nov;9(11):405.
doi: 10.1007/s13205-019-1948-5. Epub 2019 Oct 21.

Antimicrobial potential of endophytic fungi from Astragalus chinensis

Peiji Liu #  1 , Dekui Zhang #  1 , Ruirui Shi #  1 , Zhengyou Yang  1 , Fengchun Zhao  1 , Yuan Tian  2
Affiliations

Antimicrobial potential of endophytic fungi from Astragalus chinensis

Peiji Liu et al. 3 Biotech. 2019 Nov.

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to discover antimicrobial endophytic fungi from Astragalus chinensis. Three fungal endophytes with antibacterial activity were isolated and determined as Chaetomium sp. HQ-1, Fusarium sp. HQ-7 and Fusarium sp. HQ-9 based on the neighbor-joining phylogenetic tree. Chaetomium sp. HQ-1 showed the best antibiotic potential and was thus selected for large-scale fermentation. Bioactivity-directed separation of ME fermentation of strain HQ-1 led to the discovery of three compounds, which were identified as differanisole A (1), 2,6-dichloro-4-propylphenol (2) and 4,5-dimethylresorcinol (3), from the HR-ESI-MS and NMR data analysis. All three compounds exhibited moderate antibacterial activity against Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, and methicillin-resistant S. aureus, with MIC values ranging from 16 to 128 μg/mL. Compounds 1 and 3 also displayed promising antifungal activity against Selerotium rolfsii with IC50 values of less than 16 and 32 μg/mL, respectively, which were comparable to that of actidione (8 μg/mL). The findings of the present study suggest that the endophytic fungi from A. chinensis have the potential to be used as bactericides and fungicides.

Keywords: Antibiotic; Astragalus chinensis; Chaetomium sp.; Differanisole A; Endophyte.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interestOn behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Fungal endophytes isolated from Astragalus chinensis. a Image of an Astragalus chinensis plant; b–d images of fungal endophytes HQ-1, HQ-7 and HQ-9, respectively; e the corresponding plant tissues from which the fungal endophytes were isolated; f–h fungal endophytes fermented on ME and PD medium
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Neighbor-joining phylogenetic tree based on ITS sequences obtained from the 3 fungal isolates. The endophytic strains are highlighted in bold. Numbers at the branch points are the bootstrap values based on 1000 resamplings. Bootstrap values of above 35% are shown at branch points. The scale bar represents 0.020 nucleotide changes per position
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Structures of compounds 1–3
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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