Isolation and identification of endophytic fungi isolated from Cupressus sempervirens and study of their antimicrobial activity

Abstract

Through the study, some fungi that grow on the leaves of the Cupressus sempervirens were isolated and diagnosed, and their efficiency was tested in inhibiting some fungi that cause human diseases and some gram-positive and gram-negative pathogenic bacteria. The experiments were conducted in the laboratories of the Life Sciences Department/College of Applied Medical Sciences at the University of Karbala for a period of six months for the period from 5/15/2023 to 11/15/2023. We obtained several types of fungi growing on the leavesand stems of Cupressus sempervirens, where pieces of the leaves and stems of the plant were transferred and then the samples were grown on the PDA agricultural environment. The types were as follows: two types belonging to the genus Aspergillus, which are A. flavus, A. niger, and one type belonging to the genus, Penicillium, which is P. chrysogenum, and one genus of fungus, Fusarium, which is F.longifundm. In addition to fungus, Alternaria sp. and Rhizopus oryzae. After purifying the fungal isolates obtained from Cupressus sempervirens, their ability to inhibit three types of pathogenic fungi isolated from gingivitis patients, all of which belong to the Candidaits: C.dubliniesis, C.albicans and C. glabrata using SDA media. The activity of the fungi obtained on the inhibitor of E. coli, S. aureus and P. auroginosa was also tested on Mueller Hinton Agar media. The results of this study indicate that there is a significant difference in the effectiveness of fungi obtained from the Cupressus semperviren plant against Candida fungi and pathogenic bacteria. The effectiveness of inhibition was evaluated by the diameter of the transparent halos around fungal and bacterial colonies. This result indicates the efficiency of using fungi isolated from Cupressus sempervirens plants as bioinhibitors and is considered an efficient natural source of microbial antagonism.