\(\textit{Fusarium fujikuroi}\) WQF5 isolated from \(\textit{Cephalotaxus mannii }\)Hook.f. as a producer of antibacterial agent and paclitaxel

Cephalotaxus mannii Hook.f is a rare medicinal plant used for the treatment of leukemia, however, its fungal endophytes with antibacterial and anticancer properties have not been exploited yet. In this study, six isolates were recovered from roots C. collected in Ha Giang province, Vietnam. Among them, ethyl acetate crude extract strain WQF5 exhibited strong activity against 5 tested pathogens inhibition zones ranging 13.0 ± 0.5 mm to 20.0 0.4 mm. Sulforhodamine B assay showed that possessed most potent cytotoxic lung cancer A549 breast MCF7 cell lines IC50 values 6.9 0.7 µg/mL 23.1 1.9 µg/mL, respectively. PCR-based molecular marker screening revealed positive hits essential genes encoding 10-deacetylbaccatin III-10-O-acetyltransferase (dbat) C-13 phenylpropanoyl side chain-CoA acyltransferase (bapt) involved paclitaxel production found isolate WQF5. addition, WQF5, identified as Fusarium fujikuroi by morphological ITS analysis, also produced shown HPLC-DAD analysis. This first report bioprospecting endophytic fungi isolated mannii, which capability producing was proved time. These findings addressed candidate provided excellent material further investigations how non-Taxus species synthesize paclitaxel.