Bioactive Metabolites from Endophytic Fungi Associated with Blackberry and the Impact of Epigenetic Modifiers.

Summary

Plants and their associated endophytes act as promising candidates for natural pharmaceutical industries that eventually positively affect the national income. Rubus fruticosus (Rosaceae) is a shrub famous for its fruit, commonly called blackberry. The fruit is traded worldwide due to its pleasant flavor, delicious taste, nutritional profile, cosmotic and therapeutic value. It is a rich source of valuable nutrients, as well as bioactive phytochemical constituents. It possess potent therapeutic interest highlighting its significance as a functional food. Blackberry fruit has been reported to exert significant pharmacological activities as antimicrobial, antioxidant, anticancer, antidiabetic, antiviral, neuroprotective activities.

Endophytic fungi are heterogenous group of microorganisms that normally colonize plant tissues. Numerous studies have demonstrated that these fungi act as novel sources of natural bioactive products due to its outstanding biosynthetic potential. They have been reported to exert potent biological activities as anticancer, antioxidant, antibiotic, antidiabetic, antihypertensive, hepatoprotective, hypolipidemic, vasodilator, and anti-inflammatory activities. Depending on plant associated endophytes as a natural source of bioactive metabolites could avoid the over consumption of large quantites of plants. In addition, it acts as an unrestricted supply for therapeutic compounds providing medicinal commercial exploitation.

The biosynthetic gene clusters of the fungal endophytes are responsible for encoding numerous transcriptional factors and enzymes that controls the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites. Thus, there is a demand to explore the fungal genomics and transcriptomics to investigate the potential of endophytic fungi to produce bioactive metaobolites governed by their biosynthetic gene clusters. Epigenetic modification that prompt epigenetic fungal changes could be applied to fungi to activate their silent gene clusters as well as induce or enhance synthesis the metabolites of interest. It acts as an effective tool to enhance the production of adequate quantities of the desired metabolites or produce novel compounds by modulating gene expression.

The current study aims to isolate, purify and identify the endophytic fungi associated with blackberry. In-depth phytochemical investigation on the fungal isolates will be performed to characterize their secondary metabolites. In addition, the biological activities of these endophytic fungi will be assessed. Furthermore, the study aims to explore the impact of the epigenetic modifiers on the metablome of the endophytic fungi.

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