Abstract

Yufan Zhou, Ying Zhang, Jiaru Li, Xiangjie Meng, Jianglin Zhao, Wei He and Ligang Zhou*

Fourteen distinct endophytic fungal isolates were first separated from the healthy underground parts of Trillium tschonoskii, which is a traditional medicinal herb mainly distributed in China. They were taxonomically identified by morphological traits and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rRNA gene sequence analysis. Seven genera, namely, Acremonium, Colletotrichum, Fusarium, Leptodontidium, Paraconiothyrium, Plectosphaerella, and Volutella, were identified on the basis of their morphological characterizations. Their ITS-rDNA sequences were compared with those available in the GenBank database to obtain the closest related species by BLAST analysis. A modified thin layer chromatography-bioautography assay was used to detect the antibacterial activity of the nbutanol extracts of the mycelia and culture filtrates of the isolates. Most of the fungal isolates were screened to have antibacterial activity, and antibacterial components were examined to mainly exist in the filtrate except isolates Trtsf09 and Trtsf14. Five isolates, that is, Trtsf05, Trtsf06, Trtsf11, Trts12 and Trts13, were also screened to have antioxidant activity. The endophytic fungi isolated from T. tschonoskii could be an alternative source to produce antibacterial and antioxidant agents.