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Mucormycosis, also known as Zygomycosis, is a disease caused by invasive fungi, predominantly Rhizopus species belonging to the Order of Mucorales . Seeing from the chemistry perspective, heterocyclic compounds with an "azole" moiety are widely employed as antifungal agent for minimising the effect of mucormycosis as a prescribed treatment. These azoles serve as non-competitive inhibitors of fungal CYP51B by predominantly binding to its heme moiety, rendering its inhibition. However, long-term usage and abuse of azoles as antifungal medicines has resulted in drug resistance among certain fungal pathogens. Hence, there is an unmet need to find alternative therapeutic compounds. In present study, we used various in vitro tests to investigate the antifungal activity of eugenol against R. oryzae/R. arrhizus , including ergosterol quantification to test inhibition of ergosterol production mediated antifungal action. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) value obtained for eugenol was 512 μg/ml with reduced ergosterol concentration of 77.11 ± 3.25% at MIC/2 concentration. Further, the molecular interactions of eugenol with fungal CYP51B were meticulously studied making use of proteomics in silico study including molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations that showed eugenol to be strongly interacting with heme in an identical fashion to that shown by azole drugs (in this case, clotrimazole was evaluated). This is the first of a kind study showing the simulation study of eugenol with CYP51B of fungi. This inhibition results in ergosterol synthesis and is also studied and compared with keeping clotrimazole as a reference. Graphical Abstract

Plant growth-promoting fungi play an important role in development of sustainable agriculture. In the current study, 13 fungal strains were isolated from the rhizosphere of healthy (wheat) plant and screened for their indolic auxin production potential. strain PGFW, strain BFW and strain DGFW were amongst the most efficient indolic auxin-producing strains. Indolic auxins such as indole 3 acetate (IAA), indole 3 butyrate (IBA) and indole 3 propionate (IPA) are produced by fungi. The conventional method to assess the IAA production is through a spectrophotometric assay using Salkowski's reagent, which quantifies all indolic auxins and not individual auxins. Moreover, it was also observed that the absorption maxima () of the samples, when compared to that of standard indole-3-acetic acid, showed deviation from the latter, indicative of production of a mixture of indolic derivatives by the fungi. Hence, for further profiling of these indolic compounds, high-performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) based protocol was standardized to precisely detect and quantify individual indolic auxins like IAA, IBA and IPA in the range of 100-1000 ng per spot. HPTLC analysis also showed that the fungal strains produce different indolic auxins in media with and without fortification of tryptophan, with the production of indolic auxins being enhanced in presence of tryptophan. Thus, this standardized HPTLC protocol is an efficient and sensitive methodology to separate and quantify the indolic derivatives.

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Lignocellulolytic fungi produce a variety of lignocellulolytic enzymes which are responsible for the biodegradation of lignocellulosic agro-wastes in nature. These enzymes are also useful for biofuel production, bio-bleaching, bio-pulping etc. We have isolated ecodiversely different seventeen fungi from ecorich soils of Gandhinagar region, Gujarat, India. The objective of this work was to study enzyme production profile by lignocellulolytic fungi, using wheat straw as a model agro-waste by solid state fermentation. Most of these lignocellulolytic fungi have been found to express enzyme activities like filter paper activity (FPase), endoglucanase, exocellulase, β-glucosidase, xylanase, glucoamylase, manganese peroxidase (MnP) and protease. Among these, A. niger, A. oryzae and Sporotrichum sp. produce endocellulase and xylanase in significant amount. A. niger and Sporotrichum sp. gave 52.47 U/g and 69.441 U/g endocellulase activity, and 48.107 U/g and 112.649 U/g xylanase activity, respectively.