Endophytic fungi are microorganisms that colonize living plants’ tissues without causing any harm. They are known as a natural source of bioactive metabolites with diverse pharmacological functions. Many structurally different chemical metabolites were isolated from endophytic fungi. Recently, the increasing trends in human health problems and diseases have escalated the search for bioactive metabolites from endophytic fungi. The conventional bioassay-guided study is known as laborious due to chemical complexity. Thus, metabolomics studies have attracted extensive research interest owing to their potential in dealing with a vast number of metabolites. Metabolomics coupled with advanced analytical tools provides a comprehensive insight into systems biology. Despite its wide scientific attention, endophytic fungi metabolomics are relatively unexploited. This review highlights the recent developments in metabolomics studies of endophytic fungi in obtaining the global metabolites picture.

A BSTRACT Introduction: Most of the decisions regarding diagnosis and treatment are based on laboratory test results. Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are among the most common infections in humans. The changing antimicrobial sensitivity in UTI requires appropriate antibiotics. Antimicrobial resistance is an emerging problem in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where the complete reversal of antimicrobial resistance is difficult due to irrational use of antibiotics. Objectives: This study aimed to determine the most common bacterial agents causing UTI in different seasons among patients who were admitted to Buraidah Central Hospital (BCH), Saudi Arabia. The study also evaluated the link between prescribing and resistance toward antimicrobials. Materials and Methods: A 6-month retrospective study was conducted among adult patients who were admitted to the inpatient department at BCH. A total of 379 files were collected from microbiological laboratory for inpatients. Results: Most UTI-causing bacteria prevailed in the same season. Of 15 bacterial strains, 12 were significantly correlated with 20 (of a total of 40) antibiotics that were used. Most bacteria were gram-negative. Gram-negative bacilli including Escherichia coli , Klebsiella spp., and Pseudomonadaceae and gram-positive Enterococcus faecalis were most frequently causing UTIs. Conclusion: Overall prevalence of antibiotic resistance was negative in bacterial isolates. However, the relationship between antimicrobial prescribing and antimicrobial resistance was significantly negative among UTI patients in BCH, Saudi Arabia.

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Many recent pharmacometabonomics studies have been conducted to identify novel biomarkers of drug therapies such as paracetamol, aspirin and simvastatin. Thus, a technique such as NMR based pharmacometabonomics to find novel biomarkers in plasma and urine might be useful to predict warfarin outcome.