Spatial and seasonal influences on culturable endophytic mycobiota associated with different tissues of Eugenia jambolana Lam. and their antibacterial activity against MDR strains.
BACKGROUND
Present study focuses on diversity and distribution analysis of endophytic fungi associated with different tissues of Eugenia jambolana. The influence of season and geographical location on diversity and distribution of endophytic fungi has been analyzed. Antibacterial activity of isolated fungal species has also been investigated against MDR bacterial strains.


RESULT
A total of 1896 endophytic fungal isolates were obtained from healthy, surface sterilized tissues of leaf, stem and petiole tissues during summer, monsoon and winter season. Out of 24 fungal species isolated, 20 species belong to class Ascomycetes, 2 to Basidiomycetes and 2 to Zygomycetes. Maximum species diversity was in rainy season whereas colonization frequency was in winter. All the diversity indices showed maximum species diversity at site 5 (Yamunanager), rainy among the seasons and leaf among the tissues studied. Aspergillus genus was most frequently isolated. Aspergillus niger and Alternaria alternata were most dominant species. Three way ANOVA results showed that effect of season was highly significant on species diversity in relation to sites and tissues. 60% endophytic fungal extracts showed significant antibacterial activity against one or more than one MDR bacterial strain.


CONCLUSION
Different fungal species were recovered from different sites but the inter-site comparisons were not significant according to Jaccard similarity coefficient. Diversity of such fungal endophytes indicates that Eugenia jambolana plant acts as an ecosystem facilitating survival of many microbes with impressive antibacterial potential.
['Yadav|Manila|M|', 'Yadav|Amita|A|', 'Kumar|Sandeep|S|', 'Yadav|Jaya Parkash|JP|']
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents D001419:Bacteria D044822:Biodiversity D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial D060026:Endophytes D000068856:Eugenia D005658:Fungi D008969:Molecular Sequence Data D010802:Phylogeny D018515:Plant Leaves D018547:Plant Stems D012621:Seasons
Season Tissues Eugenia jambolana Antibacterial MDR Diversity Endophytic fungi Sites