Improvement in the Phytochemical Content and Biological Properties of (Bertoni) Bertoni Plant Using Endophytic Fungi .

This study aimed to increase the therapeutic potential of medicinal plants through inoculation with endophytic fungi. As endophytes influence medicinal plants' biological properties, twenty fungal strains were isolated from the medicinal plant Among all fungal isolates, the R2 strain showed the highest antagonistic activity towards plant pathogenic fungi and . The partial ITS region of the R2 strain was deposited in the GenBank nucleotide sequence databases under accession number ON652311 as isolate R2 OS. To ascertain the impact of an endophytic fungus on the biological functions of medicinal plants, seeds were inoculated with (ON652311). In the DPPH assay, the IC value of the inoculated plant extracts (methanol, chloroform, and positive control) was 72.082 µg/mL, 85.78 µg/mL, and 18.86 µg/mL, respectively. In the FRAP assay, the IC value of the inoculated extracts (methanol, chloroform extract, and positive control) was 97.064 µM Fe equivalents, 117.662 µM Fe equivalents, and 53.384 µM Fe equivalents, respectively. In the extracts of the plant inoculated with endophytic fungus, rutin and syringic acid (polyphenols) concentrations were 20.8793 mg/L and 5.4389 mg/L, respectively, which were higher than in the control plant extracts. This approach can be further utilized for other medicinal plants to increase their phytochemical content and hence medicinal potential in a sustainable way.