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Comprehensive Review of Endophytic Flora from African Medicinal Plants

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Abstract

Many people in different African countries are suffering from different diseases many of which result in serious life threat and public health problems with high risk of infection and mortality. Due to less accessibility and high cost of modern drugs, people of this continent often depend on traditional medicine using medicinal plants to manage the diseases. Africa has large tropical rain forests, which are very rich in medicinal plants. Many of them have been scientifically proven for their medicinal values. These medicinal plants which constitute a large repertoire of endophytes have not been significantly explored for the isolation of these microorganisms and their bioactive secondary metabolites. This review summarizes the research on endophytes isolated from medicinal plants of Africa, their pharmacological potential and some of their biotechnological aspects. Novel compounds reported from endophytes from Africa with their biological activities have also been reviewed. Information documented in this review might serve as starting point for future researches on endophytes in different African countries.

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Acknowledgements

AN is thankful to TWAS-CSIR (The World Academy of Science- Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) for the post graduate fellowship at CSIR-IIIM, Jammu, India. NK is supported by ICMR-SRF. SA is supported by DST. VLJ was supported by CSIR HCP0010. QPH and SGG are thankful for funding from CSIR under the Phytopharma Mission (HCP0010).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, India

    Augustin Ntemafack, Nitika Kapoor, Sabeena Ali, Vijay Lakshmi Jamwal, Qazi Parvaiz Hassan & Sumit G. Gandhi

  2. Plant Biotechnology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, India

    Augustin Ntemafack, Nitika Kapoor, Sabeena Ali, Vijay Lakshmi Jamwal & Sumit G. Gandhi

  3. Biotechnology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Sanat Nagar, Srinagar, India

    Sabeena Ali & Qazi Parvaiz Hassan

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  1. Augustin Ntemafack
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  2. Nitika Kapoor
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  3. Sabeena Ali
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  4. Vijay Lakshmi Jamwal
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  5. Qazi Parvaiz Hassan
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Contributions

AN contributed in data collection, drew figures and chemical structure of the compounds, and wrote the initial draft. NK helped in collection of data and writing of manuscript. SA participated in data collection and preparation of tables. VLJ contributed in collection of strain and accession number of endophytes and preparation of tables. QPH and SGG participated in designing the investigation, guided the writing and proof read the manuscript and figures/tables. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Qazi Parvaiz Hassan or Sumit G. Gandhi.

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Ntemafack, A., Kapoor, N., Ali, S. et al. Comprehensive Review of Endophytic Flora from African Medicinal Plants. Curr Microbiol 78, 2860–2898 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-021-02566-x

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