Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Review Article | OPEN ACCESS

Endophytes: A vital source of medicine â€“ A review

Selvaraj Perumal¹, Ramalingam Radhakrishnan¹ , Ramaraj Sathasivam², Muthukrishnan Arun³, Jisook Song⁴, Sang Un Park^2,5

¹Department of Botany, Jamal Mohamed College (Autonomous), Affiliated to Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, Tamilnadu - 620020, India; ²Department of Crop Science, Chungnam National University, 99 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34134, South Korea; ³Department of Biotechnology, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India; ⁴Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Agro-Livestock Products Sanitary and Quality Control Team, 94 Dasom2-ro, Sejong-si 30110, South Korea; ⁵Department of Smart Agriculture Systems, Chungnam National University, 99 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34134, South Korea.

For correspondence:- Ramalingam Radhakrishnan Email: rkbot@jmc.edu Tel:+82428215730

Accepted: 28 April 2023 Published: 30 May 2023

Citation: Perumal S, Radhakrishnan R, Sathasivam R, Arun M, Song J, Park SU. Endophytes: A vital source of medicine â€“ A review. Trop J Pharm Res 2023; 22(5):1133-1142 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v22i5.28

© 2023 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Soil and endosymbiotic microorganisms are naturally analogous to plant roots in a symbiotic and non-symbiotic manner. Several groups of plant growth-promoting bacteria and fungi have been identified as bio-fertilizers and isolated microbes have been applied to farmer's agricultural fields to enhance plant biomass and crop productivity. Overall, very few studies have been conducted on the beneficial effect of endophytic microbes on drug production in plants. This review focuses on medicinally valuable plants and their associated endophytic bacteria and fungi to develop drug molecules against human pathogens and other illnesses. Various secondary metabolites, including anticancer, antidiabetic, antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral compounds, are present in both endophytes and their host plants. The number of secondary metabolites produced by fungal endophytes and their host plants is reported to be greater than that of endophytic bacterial species. The current proficiency of endophytic bacterial and fungal metabolites and their bioactivity against diseases are addressed in this review

Keywords: Bioactive metabolites, Endophytic bacteria, Endophytic fungi, Medicinal plants, Pathogens