Antimicrobial potential of fungal endophytes from selected high value medicinal plants of the Kashmir valley – India

The purpose of this work was to evaluate the antimicrobial potential of endophytic fungi isolated from different high value medicinal plants of Kashmir valley. Evaluation of some endophytes has been carried out for their possible antimicrobial activity from various parts of medicinal plants belonging to Kashmir valley (India). A total of twenty eight fungal endophytes were isolated from the different parts of selected medicinal plants. Dichloromethane (DCM) extracts of all the morphologically different endophytes were prepared and subsequently checked for antimicrobial activities. Eight isolates showed good activity against gram positive bacteria with two isolates showing promising activity with MIC in the range of 0.5 – 1μg/ml. All the isolated endophytic extracts were completely devoid of antifungal activity. The seven active endophytic fungal cultures were identified by ITS4 and ITS5 gene sequencing.