Commiphora wightii subsp. endophyte (Arn.) Bhandari

Bhatia, Anil, Bharti, Santosh K., Tripathi, Tusha, Mishra, Anuradha, Sidhu, Om P., Roy, Raja & Nautiyal, Chandra Shekhar, 2015, Metabolic profiling of Commiphora wightii (guggul) reveals a potential source for pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals, Phytochemistry 110, pp. 29-36 : 33

2.5. Metabolites from C. wightii endophyte

Five endophytic fungi namely Fusarium incarnatum (NBRI88611), Emericella variecolor (NBRI88613), Fusarium solani (NBRI88614), Aspergillus tubingensis (NBRI88615) and Nigrospora sps. (NBRI88616) were isolated from healthy stem of C. wightii . Out of 5, one fungus Nigrospora sps. (NBRI88616) was found to produce substantial amounts of red-pigmented compounds in both the liquid and solid potato dextrose media ( Fig. 2 ). Intracellular and extracellular metabolites from chloroform extracts of endophytic fungus grown in potato dextrose liquid media for 4-weeks at 28 ± 2 °C were investigated using NMR spectroscopy and GC– MS. Red pigmented compounds were separated by liquid phase extraction with chloroform using a separatory funnel. Combined chloroform extracts were concentrated and the purified fractions of compound 1 (97 mg) and compound 2 (110 mg) were obtained by preparative TLC. The purified reddish amorphous powders of both the compounds were identified as deoxybostrycin (compound 1) and bostrycin (compound 2) by one- and two-dimensional NMR experiments (Supplementary Figs. 8–12). The structures of deoxybostrycin and bostrycin were determined by comparing 1 H NMR data as reported previously ( Chen et al., 2012; Xia et al., 2011). The deoxybostrycin and bostrycin assignments are presented in Supplementary Table 1. Bostrycin, a potent antitumor agent ( Xia et al., 2011) has earlier been isolated from marine mangrove fungus, Nigrospora sp. ( Duke, 1992). Endophytic fungi produce an array of metabolites including alkaloids, benzopyranones, coumarins, quinines, steroids and terpenoids ( Gunatilaka, 2006).

Additionally, 28 intracellular and extracellular metabolites from chloroform extracts of an endophytic fungus were investigated using GC–MS and derivatives of steroids, fatty acids, phenol and sterols were identified (Supplementary Table 6). Ergosterol, a metabolite obtained from fungal membrane ( Mille-Lindblom et al., 2004) was detected, thus indicating association of fungi with C. wightii . The results of the present study suggest that the steroidal derivatives produced by the endophytic fungus may have an important role in biosynthesis of the principal bioactives guggulsterone-Z and guggulsterone-E of C. wightii . The role of steroidal derivatives produced by an endophyte in biosynthesis of biologically active metabolites of its host plant needs further research.

Figures

Fig. 2. Shows endophytic fungus Nigrospora sp. on potato dextrose agar plate (A) and potato dextrose broth medium (B) and SEM image (C).