Bioprospecting Endophytic Fungi of Forest Plants for Bioactive Metabolites with Antibacterial, Antifungal, and Antioxidant Potentials

The growing emergence of multi-drug resistant microbial strains has kept the scientific world searching for novel bioactive compounds with specific chemical characteristics. Accordingly, researchers have started exploring the understudied metabolites from endophytes as a new source of bioactive compounds. In this context, the current study was designed to evaluate the bioactive properties of endophytic fungi from the Mokrzański forest in Wrocław, Poland that have not yet been fully researched. Forty-three endophytic fungi were isolated from twelve distinct plants. Following their cultivation, fungal extracts were separately prepared from biomass and cell-free filtrates, and their antibacterial, antifungal (against human and plant pathogens), and antioxidant properties were examined. Five promising fungi after screening were identified to possess all of these activities. These strains and their respective plant hosts were <i>Trichoderma harzianum</i> BUK-T (<i>Fagus sylvatica</i>), <i>Aspergillus ochraceus</i> ROB-L1 (<i>Robinia pseudoacacia</i>), <i>Chaetomium cochliodes</i> KLON-L1, <i>Fusarium tricinctum</i> KLON-L2 (<i>Acer platanoides</i>), and <i>Penicillium chrysogenum</i> SOS-B2 (<i>Pinus sylvestris</i>). Moreover, gamma irradiation at several doses (Gy) was separately applied to the fungal cultures to study their effects on the recorded activities. Finally, compounds after preparative thin-layer chromatography fractionation of the five fungal strains were identified by GC-MS. These findings suggest that the isolated endophytic fungi could serve as novel sources of bioactive metabolites with antibacterial, antifungal, and antioxidant properties, potentially paving the way for future research and the development of new bioactive compounds.