Bioactive potential of endophytic fungus Chaetomium globosum and GC–MS analysis of its responsible components

The recent exploration of various medicinal plants for bioactive potential has led to the growing interest to explore their endophytes for such bioactive potential which may turn out to be better option than the plants. In the present study, Chaetomium globosum, an endophytic fungus isolated from Moringa oleifera Lam has been explored for its various biological activities. The chloroformic extract of C. globosum showed good antimutagenicity against the reactive carcinogenic mutagen, 2-aminofluorene (2-AF) in Ames test. The antiproliferative activity against various cell lines such as HCT-15, HeLa and U87-MG was found to be dose dependent and the viability reduced to 9.26%, 15.7% and 16.3%, respectively. Further, the chloroformic fungal extract was investigated for free radical scavenging activity using 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethyl-benzthiazolin-6-sulfonic acid) assay which showed the IC(50) value of 45.16 µg/ml and 50.55 µg/ml, respectively. The fungal extract also showed good ferric reducing power. Total phenolic and flavonoid content was found to be in linear relationship with the antioxidant potential of the fungal extract. High performance liquid chromatography showed the presence of phenolics which may help to combat the free radicals. The presence of various bioactive compounds was analysed by GC–MS which endorsed Chaetomium globosum to be a promising candidate for drug development.