Production and Evaluation of Antimycotic and Antihepatitis C Virus Potential of Fusant MERV6270 Derived from Mangrove Endophytic Fungi Using Novel Substrates of Agroindustrial Wastes

Abstract

Among forty endophytic fungal isolates derived from the mangrove plant Avicennia marina, thirty-seven isolates (92.5 %) shown vary antimycotic activity against clinical Trichophyton, Microsporum, and Epidermophyton isolates. The hyperactive wild antagonistic strains Acremonium sp. MERV1 and Chaetomium sp. MERV7 were subjected to intergeneric protoplast fusion technique, and out of 20 fusants obtained, the fusant MERV6270 showed the highest antimycotic activity with the broadest spectrum against all dermatophytes under study. Solid-state fermentation (SSF) showed its superiority for antimycotic/antiviral metabolite production using cost-effective agroindustrial residues. Low-cost novel fermentation medium containing inexpensive substrate mixture of molokhia stalk, lemon peel, pomegranate peel, peanut peel (2:1:1:1) moistened with potato, and meat processing wastewaters (2:1, at moisture content of 60 %) provided a high antimycotic metabolite yield, 33.25 mg/gds, by the fusant MERV6270. The optimal parameters for antimycotic productivity under SSF were incubation period (4 days), incubation temperature (27.5-30 °C), initial pH (6), initial moisture level (60 %), substrate particle size (1.0 mm), and inoculum size (2 × 10(6) spores/gds), which elucidated antimycotic activity to 44.19 mg/gds. Interestingly, wild mangrove Acremonium sp. MERV1 and Chaetomium sp. MERV7 strains and their fusant MERV6270 showed significant inhibition of hepatitis C virus with viral knockdown percent of -82.48, -82.44, and -97.37 %, respectively, compared to the control (100 %), which open a new era in combat epidemic viral diseases.

Genome Shuffling of Mangrove EndophyticAspergillus luchuensisMERV10 for Improving the Cholesterol-Lowering Agent Lovastatin under Solid State Fermentation

“…Different mangrove fungal species (17 strains) (Table 1) were obtained from a previous study [9] and evaluated for lovastatin productivity by TLC analysis, followed by further estimation at 238 nm. The results showed that 82.35% (14 isolates) were positive for lovastatin production.…”

“…The marine endophytic fungal strains were obtained previously [9]. Lovastatin-producing endophytic fungi were grown and preserved on potato dextrose agar (PDA) medium for 7 days at 28℃ until conidia formation.…”

“…Marine mangroves are well known to be hosts for a large community of associated endophytic fungi without inducing disease symptoms. Endophyte microbes are becoming targets of the continuing search for an economical, continuous, and manageable supply of the pharmacologically active compounds by laboratory cultivation of the endophytic producer outside the hosts [9]. …”

“…ALAA 2000 and Aspergillus sp. NRCF5, respectively as well as antimycotic and anti-hepatitis C virus (HCV) metabolites produced by mangrove fungi [91112]. Solid state fermentation (SSF) is a method where by various agricultural wastes and polymers can be used for growing fungal species.…”

Production of Gentisyl Alcohol from Phoma herbarum Endophytic in Curcuma longa L. and Its Antagonistic Activity Towards Leaf Spot Pathogen Colletotrichum gloeosporioides

“…were the common endophytes isolated. They have also been reported to be endophytic in other medicinal plants as well [14,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]. However, Exophiala lecanii, A. versicolor, and Stachybotrys sp.…”