Pharmacological and phytochemical potentials of endophytic fungi from Nigerian medicinal plants: A review

Abstract

Investigation of microorganisms for natural product is the new paradigm in drug discovery research. Microorganisms are obtained from different sources for this purpose, and plants are one of these sources. Endophytes usually present in the plant’s cell walls have been confirmed to synthesize secondary metabolites similar or sometimes different from those of their host plants. This movement from plants to their endophytes for potential drug molecules led some researchers in Nigeria to investigate the endophytes (especially fungal endophytes) of some Nigerian medicinal plants for bioactive secondary. The current study tries to summarize the research so far conducted on fungal endophytes of Nigerian medicinal plants, and correlate the endophytes’ secondary metabolites and their pharmacological activities with those of the host plants. To achieve this, research articles written in English were sourced from Google Scholar, PubMed, Science Direct and Scopus from the time scientific study on fungal endophytes started in Nigeria till date. Out of over 7000 plant species in the Nigerian biodiversity, only about only a few have had their endophytes scientifically explored for pharmacological activities and some of them generated novel bioactive compounds.