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Endophytes are fungi and bacteria that inhabit plant tissues without causing disease. Endophytes have characteristics that are important for the health of the plant and have been isolated from several plants of economic and medicinal interest but rarely from ornamental plants. The current study isolates and identifies endophytic fungi from the leaves of Pachystachys lutea and evaluates the antagonistic activity of these endophytes as well as cellulase production by the endophytes. Fungi were isolated by fragmentation from surface-disinfected leaves and were identified by the sequencing of the ITS gene and the genes coding for EF 1-α and β-tubulin followed by multilocus sequence analysis. Molecular taxonomic analysis revealed that 78% of the identified fungi belonged to the genus Diaporthe. We also identified strains belonging to the genera Colletotrichum, Phyllosticta, Xylaria, Nemania, and Alternaria. Most of the strains tested were able to inhibit the growth of pathogenic fungi, especially PL09 (Diaporthe sp.), which inhibited the growth of Colletotrichum sp., and PL03 (Diaporthe sp.), which inhibited the growth of Fusarium oxysporum. The production of cellulase ranged from 0.87 to 1.60 μmol/min. Foliar endophytic fungal isolates from P. lutea showed promising results for the in vitro control of plant pathogens and for cellulase production. This paper is the first report on culturable endophytic fungi isolated from the ornamental plant P. lutea.

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A tropical endophytic isolate of the fungus Fusarium verticillioides (synonym Fusarium moniliforme) obtained from Zea mays was co-transformed with plasmid pNH24 containing the Fusarium oxysporum nitrate reductase nia gene and plasmid pNOM 102 carrying the Escherichia coli β-glucuronidase gusA gene. Transformation frequency for the nia marker was 75 transformants µg -1 vector DNA and introduction of the gusA gene by co-transformation was 57.2% as indicated by the presence of the GUS + phenotype on plates. Southern analyses confirmed the integration of both plasmids into the genome of ten GUS + transformants. All co-transformants showed mitotic stability in respect of the GUS + phenotype. To assess the potential of transformed endophytic fungi as vectors for introducing desirable characteristics into host tropical plants of biotechnological and agricultural importance we successfully infected maize roots and detected GUS + phenotype".

In the present study, biological activity and chemical composition of two crude extracts of endophytic fungal strains of Bipolaris genera isolated from two species of aquatic macrophytes: Eichhornia azurea (Kunth) and Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) were investigated. The nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry data provided the identification of three main compounds: curvulin (1), spirostaphylotrichin R (2) and U (3). The fragmentation mechanism of the precursor ions towards collision induced dissociation (CID) tandem mass spectrometry experiment (MS/MS) is also proposed. Furthermore, biological screening of the crude extracts displayed antileishmanial activity with IC values ranging from 70-84.2 μg.mL.