Antiplasmodial Properties and Cytotoxicity of Endophytic Fungi from (Clusiaceae).

There is continuing need for new and improved drugs to tackle malaria, which remains a major public health problem, especially in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Natural products represent credible sources of new antiplasmodial agents for antimalarial drug development. Endophytes that widely colonize healthy tissues of plants have been shown to synthesize a great variety of secondary metabolites that might possess antiplasmodial benefits. The present study was carried out to evaluate the antiplasmodial potential of extracts from endophytic fungi isolated from against a chloroquine-resistant strain of ). Sixty-one fungal isolates with infection frequency of 67.77% were obtained from the bark of . Twelve selected isolates were classified into six different genera including , , , , and . Extracts from the 12 isolates were tested against , and nine showed good activity (IC < 10 μg·mL) with three fungi including (IC = 0.44 μg·mL), (IC = 0.2 μg·mL), and sp. (IC = 0.55 μg·mL) showing the highest promise. These three isolates were found to be less cytotoxic against the HEK293T cell line with selectivity indices ranging from 24.52 to 70.56. Results from this study indicate that endophytic fungi from are promising sources of hit compounds that might be further investigated as novel drugs against malaria. The chemical investigation of active extracts is ongoing.