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Endophyte composition and Cinchona alkaloid production abilities of Cinchona ledgeriana cultivated in Japan

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Abstract

New eight endophytic filamentous fungi were isolated from the young stems of Cinchona ledgeriana (Rubiaceae) cultivated in Japan. They were classified into four genera based on phylogenetic analysis of the nucleotide sequences of the internal transcribed spacers (ITS1 and ITS2), including the 5.8S ribosomal DNA region. Of the eight fungi isolated, there were five genera Cladosporium, one Meira sp., one Diaporthe sp. and one Penicillium sp. Genus of Cladosporium and Meira were first isolated fungi from Cinchona plant. In a previous study, we applied the same process to the same plant cultivated in Indonesia. The endophyte compositions for the two cultivation regions were found to differ at the genera level. The ability of Cinchona endophytes cultivated in Japan to produce Cinchona alkaloids was also assessed. We found that three isolates have producing ability of Cinchona alkaloids. However, the amount produced was very small compared to that produced by the endophytes of Indonesian Cinchona ledgeriana. In addition, the total content amount of Cinchona alkaloids, especially quinine, produced by the extract of Cinchona cultivated in Japan was much smaller than that from Indonesia. These finding indicate that endophyte composition has an influence on the Cinchona alkaloid content amount in the Cinchona ledgeriana host.

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank Prof. Partomuan Simanjuntak of the Research Center for Biotechnology, Indonesian Institute of Sciences for helped our investigation of endophytic fungi isolation from C. ledgeriana which cultivated in Japan. In this research was supported by the Fukuyama University Grant for Academic Research Projects (GARP2016-107). The authors would like to thank Enago (www.enago.jp) for the English language review.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Fukuyama University, Sanzo, 1, Gakuen-cho, Fukuyama, Hiroshima, 729-0292, Japan

    Shoji Maehara, Yoshimi Tokunaga, Hirotaka Shibuya & Toshiyuki Hata

  2. Research Center for Biology, Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Jalan Raya Bogor Km 46, Cibinong, Bogor, 16911, Indonesia

    Andria Agusta

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  1. Shoji Maehara
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  2. Andria Agusta
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  3. Yoshimi Tokunaga
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  4. Hirotaka Shibuya
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  5. Toshiyuki Hata
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Correspondence to Shoji Maehara.

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Maehara, S., Agusta, A., Tokunaga, Y. et al. Endophyte composition and Cinchona alkaloid production abilities of Cinchona ledgeriana cultivated in Japan. J Nat Med 73, 431–438 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11418-018-1273-z

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