Antibiofilm, antiproliferative, antioxidant and antimutagenic activities of an endophytic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus from Moringa oleifera.

An endophytic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus isolated from Moringa oleifera has been evaluated for its various bioactivities. The chloroformic fungal extract exhibited a good antimicrobial as well as antibiofilm activity against various pathogenic microorganisms. It also demonstrated a good antimutagenicity against the reactive carcinogenic ester generating mutagen, 2-aminofluorene (2-AF) with IC₅₀ values of 0.52 mg ml^-1 and 0.36 mg ml^-1 in case of co-incubation and pre-incubation, respectively. The antiprolifertive activity against different cancer cell lines; such as HCT-15, HeLa A549 and U87-MG showed the IC₅₀ values of 0.061, 0.065 and 0.072 mg ml^-1, respectively. The antioxidant activity of fungal extract has been assessed by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethyl-benzthiazolin-6-sulfonicacid) (ABTS) methods with IC₅₀ values of 40.07 µg and 54.28 µg, respectively. Total phenolics and flavonoid contents have been also determined. Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) of fungal extract revealed the presence of various phenolic compounds (caffeic acid, rutin, ellagic acid, quercetin and kaempferol). Further an attempt has been made to purify the bioactive compounds by column chromatography and GC-MS analysis. The above studies demonstrated a good bioactive potential of endophytic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus and shows the pharmacological importance of an endophytic fungus and justify the need to carry out further studies.