Antioxidant, Antibacterial and Dyeing Potential of Crude Pigment Extract of and Its Chemical Characterization.

Filamentous fungi synthesize natural products as an ecological function. In this study, an interesting indigenous fungus producing orange pigment exogenously was investigated in detail as it possesses additional attributes along with colouring properties. An interesting fungus was isolated from a dicot plant, . After a detailed study, the fungal isolate turned out to be a species of belonging to the family . Based on the morphological, cultural, and sequence-based phylogenetic analysis, the identity of this fungus was confirmed as . Although this fungus grows moderately, it produces good amounts of pigment on an agar medium. The fermented crude extract isolated from has shown antioxidant activity with an IC value of 0.99 mg/mL and antibacterial activity against Gram-positive bacteria (with MIC of 3.91 μg/mL against , and 15.6 μg/mL and 31.25 μg/mL for and , respectively). Dyeing of cotton fabric mordanted with FeSO using crude pigment was found to be satisfactory based on visual observation, suggesting its possible use in the textile industry. The orange pigment was purified from the crude extract by preparative HP-TLC. In addition, UV-Vis, FTIR, HRMS and NMR (H NMR, C NMR), COSY, and DEPT analyses revealed the orange pigment to be "1,2-dimethoxy-3-phenoxazin-3-one" (CHNO, 257). To our understanding, the present study is the first comprehensive report on as a potential pigment producer, reporting "1,2-dimethoxy-3-phenoxazin-3-one" as the main pigment from the crude hexane extract. Moreover, this is the first study reporting antioxidant, antibacterial, and dyeing potential of crude extract of , suggesting possible potential applications of pigments and other bioactive secondary metabolites of the in textile and pharmaceutical industry.