Endophytic fungus
- Albifimbria verrucaria isolated from Centella asiatica and its antioxidant and
antibacterial activities
Saranya Shankar and Mythili Sathiavelu
Res. J. Biotech.; Vol. 20(2); 92-98;
doi: https://doi.org/10.25303/202rjbt092098; (2025)
Abstract
The present research focuses on the isolation of endophytic fungi from the roots
of Centella asiatica and analyzes the antagonistic efficiency of endophytic fungus
against bacterial fish pathogens. Agar plug diffusion assay, phytochemical screening,
antioxidant activity, agar well diffusion assay and minimum inhibitory and bactericidal
concentration were done for the fungal endophytes. Eight endophytic fungi in total
were isolated from C.asiatica roots. Among that, CAR1 exhibits maximum antibacterial
action in the preliminary screening and it is subjected to an extraction procedure
using different polarity solvents to obtain crude extracts. Phytochemical assessment
results showed the presence of tannins, saponins, flavonoids, phenol, alkaloids
and steroids.
In the antioxidant assay, the dichloromethane crude extract exhibited highest radical
scavenging effect of 90% at 150 μg/mL concentration. Agar well diffusion assay displayed
the highest antagonistic activity against selected bacterial fish pathogens. The
maximum inhibition was obtained against V.harveyi (19 mm) at 100 μg/mL concentration
and the MIC and MBC values were identified as 25 and 50 μg/mL respectively. The
most active (CAR1) isolate was molecularly identified as Albifimbria verrucaria.
The results highlighted that the dichloromethane crude extract of the endophytic
fungus A.verrucaria has a significant pharmaceutical potential as antibacterial
and antioxidant agents.
