In vitro and in vivo antifungal efficacy of plant based lawsone against Fusarium oxysporum species complex

Abstract

Fusarium oxysporum is an ascomycete facultative fungus which generally affects to plants. However, it is recently known as a serious emerging opportunistic pathogen of human and other animals. F. oxysporum shows broad resistance to commonly used antifungal agents and therefore development of alternative therapeutic agents is required. In this study, we investigated the antifungal efficacy of plant based natural lawsone against pathogenic F. oxysporum. Antifungal susceptibility test determined the concentration dependent growth inhibition of lawsone against F. oxysporum with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) at 100μg/mL. Ultra-structural analysis indicates the prominent damage on cell wall of the mycelium after lawsone treatment, and suggests that it could increase the membrane permeability and disintegration of cells leading to cellular death. Propidium iodide (PI) uptake assay results showed the higher level of cell death in lawsone treated F. oxysporum which further confirms the loss of plasma membrane integrity. Also, detection of reactive oxygen species (ROS) using DCFH-DA has clearly indicated that lawsone (100μg/mL) can induce the ROS level in the filaments of F. oxysporum. MTT assay results showed the loss of viability and germination capacity of F. oxysporum spores by lawsone in concentration dependent manner. Moreover, lawsone treatment induced the mRNA expression of two autophagy related genes (ATG1 and ATG8) indicating that lawsone may activate the autophagy related pathways in F. oxysporum due to the oxidative stress generated by ROS. F. oxysporum infected zebrafish has recovered after lawsone therapy as a topical treatment suggesting that lawsone is a potential natural antifusariosis agent.

Allylic Selenocyanates as New Agents to Combat Fusarium Species Involved with Human Infections

“…On the other hand, compounds 1 d and 1 f do not impair the morphology of F. keratoplasticum since no evident cellular damage or morphological modifications of tubular structures was noted when compared to the control. Same morphological damage in fungi cells was recently observed in related studies using SEM, after treating the strains with a variety of organic compounds or nanoparticles …”

Microwave-Assisted Green Synthesis and Characterization of Silver Nanoparticles Using Melia azedarach for the Management of Fusarium Wilt in Tomato

“…Fungicidal effect of AgNPs against F. oxysporum was evidenced by expressing a high level of red fluorescence of PI intensity that was directly proportional to the exposed dose of MLE-AgNPs. As an example, the mycelium of F. oxysporum showed cell death and loss of membrane integrity after uptake of PI upon treatment with lawsone (Dananjaya et al, 2017). Similarly, DCFH-DA fluorescence specifies intracellular ROS production in fungal mycelium.…”

Exploration of Antifungal Potential of Carbohydrate‐Tethered Triazoles as CYP450 Inhibitors

“…PI is a membrane impermeable dye that cannot enter the intact cell unless the cell membrane is damaged and fluoresces red upon penetrating membrane compromised cells and binding to nucleic acids . Therefore, PI dye would only stain necrotic cells, as intact fungal membrane is impermeable . The effect of compound 10f at increased concentration on cell membrane integrity of A. fumigatus 3007 has been shown in Figure .…”