Exploration of endophytic microorganisms from selected medicinal plants and their control potential to multi drug resistant pathogens

Abstract

Endophytes are microorganisms that live inside the host plant tissues which have novel metabolites exhibiting a variety of biological activities against different pathogens. This study was carried out to isolate endophytic bacteria and fungi from Terminalia arjuna (marutham), Catharanthus roseus (nithyakalyani) and Azadirachta indica (vembu) and to assess their antimicrobial activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumonia, Enterococcus faecalis and Candida albicans. Out of the several bacterial and fungal isolates the bacterial isolate NRL2exhibited a high antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus. This bacterial strain was investigated for the efficiency of solvents for extraction of antimicrobial agents. The extract of NRL2 isolates obtained from methanol and ethanol were effective. The bacterial crude extract was used against Methicillin resistant S. aureus by cup agar method. In GC MS analysis 24 compounds were obtained and four major compounds may responsible for antimicrobial activity in the inhibition of S. aureus.