Extracellular enzyme activities of endophytic fungus associated with Costus speciosus

Abstract

Costus speciosus (Koen ex. Retz.)  related to family Costaceae and believed to originated natively from the southeast Asia, distributed to India and Sri lanka. Endophytic fungi are microorganisms that have established oneself inside the higher plant asymptomatically and these are promising source of biologically active metabolites. These metabolites have been used from ancient time by human in various field like agriculture, as remedy for various ailments. The multiple beneficiary action which has been demonstrated as anticancer, antimicrobial, anti-helminthic, anti-inflammatory, cytotoxic are the result of assistance of these fungal endophytes The isolation was done with freshly prepared PDA media by inoculating healthy tissue of leaf and stem of Costus, inoculation done after surface sterilization by sodium hypochlorite (5%). Some of the fungal genera found as endophytes belongs to Aspergillus, Penicillium, Alternaria, Fusarium, Colletotrichum, Phoma, Curvulariacommonly found in nature. This study included the extracellular enzyme activities such as amylase, pectinase, cellulase, L-asparaginase on freshly isolated fungal isolates.