Natural Products from Medicinal Plants against Phytopathogenic Fusarium Species: Current Research Endeavours, Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

Many Fusarium species are pathogenic, causing crop diseases during crop production and spoilage of agricultural products in both commercial and smallholder farming. Fusarium attack often results into food contamination, yield loss and increases in food insecurity and food prices. Synthetic fungicides have been used as a control strategy for the management of crop diseases caused by Fusarium pathogens. The negative effects associated with application of many synthetic pesticides has necessitated the need to search for alternative control strategies that are affordable and environmentally safe. Research on medicinal plants as control agents for Fusarium pathogens has received attention since plants are readily available and they contain wide variety of secondary metabolites that are biodegradable. The activities of solvent extracts, essential oils and compounds from medicinal plants have been tested against Fusarium phytopathogenic species. A summary of recent information on antifungal activity of plants against Fusarium species is valuable for the development of biopesticides. This paper reviews the antifungal research conducted on medicinal plants against Fusarium pathogens, over a 10-year period, from January 2012 to May 2021. We also highlight the challenges and opportunities of using natural products from medicinal plants in crop protection. Several databases (Science Direct and Web of Science) were used to obtain information on botanical products used to control Fusarium diseases on crops. Keywords search used included natural products, antifungal, Fusarium, crops diseases, phytopathogenic, natural compounds and essential oil.

Identification of Antifungal Compounds from Piper Plants Against Fusarium oxysporum: An Untargeted Metabolite Profiling-Based Approach

“…Once isolated, they were structurally elucidated by diagnostic analysis of MS and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) data. These compounds were unequivocally identified as known metabolites, and their 13 C NMR data were identical to those reported for 8,9-dihydropiplartine (1), 36 7,8-dihydroyangonin (2), 37 4,5-dihydropiperyline (3), 18 and (2'E,6'E)-2-farnesyl-1,4-benzoquinone (4). 38 The structures of compounds 1-4 are presented in Figure 5.…”

“…Compound 1 was obtained from PtL, while PbaL afforded compound 3, and PpS yielded compounds 2 and 4. Structures of the isolated compounds were elucidated by 1 H and 13 C NMR spectroscopy, through the attached proton test (APT), on an Agilent DD2 600 MHz spectrometer (Bruker) using CDCl 3 as solvent. The APT 13 C NMR data of the isolated compounds were identical to those reported for 8,9-dihydropiplartine (1), 36 7,8-dihydroyangonin (2), 37 4,5-dihydropiperyline (3), 18 and (2'E,6'E)-2-farnesyl-1,4benzoquinone (4).…”

“…An alternative route for controlling this phytopathogen is oriented to naturally occurring compounds from plants, 13 particularly Piper species. 7 Bio-guided fractionation is the most employed approach to identifying active components within a bioactive plant-derived extract or fraction, but this practice is time-consuming and expensive.…”

Endophytic community of Chaenomeles speciosa fruits: Screening for biodiversity and antifungal activity

“…Species of the genus Fusarium used as the test cultures in our study are known to be phytopathogenic organisms causing significant crop damage. Seepe et al (2021) reported that various Fusarium species cause disease in many economically important crops, including cereals, potatoes, tomatoes, bananas, mangoes and others. Phytopathogenic influence of Fusarium species has also been noted for ornamental plants, namely orchids (Srivastava et al, 2018).…”

Antifungal effects of Paeonia lactiflora seed extracts

“…Furthermore, residues of synthetic pesticides in agricultural products threaten human health and soil and water ecosystems Liu et al, 2021;Wei et al, 2021). Thus, natural chemicals produced by plants (plant extracts or phytochemicals), fungi, and bacteria, which constitute a rich source of bioactive substances, may be an alternative to the currently used pesticides for controlling insect pests, phytopathogenic fungi, and mosquito larvae (Kalhoro et al, 2022;Seepe et al, 2021;Swain, 1997;Wink, 1993).…”