Potential Antibacterial, Wound Healing and Anti-inflammatory Activities of Penicillium rubens, an Endophytic Fungus Isolated from the Leaves of Cucumis sativus L.

Farghali, Mahmoud; Eliwa, Duaa; El-Bouseary, Maisra M.

doi:10.21608/fsrt.2025.372003.1155

Potential Antibacterial, Wound Healing and Anti-inflammatory Activities of Penicillium rubens, an Endophytic Fungus Isolated from the Leaves of Cucumis sativus L.

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tanta University, Tanta, Egypt 31527

² Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tanta University, Tanta, Egypt 31527

10.21608/fsrt.2025.372003.1155

Abstract

This study is the first to report the isolation and bioactivity of Penicillium rubens from Cucumis sativus L. leaves. Penicillium rubens was tested for its potential antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and wound healing properties. The dried ethyl acetate extract of P. rubens (EPR) demonstrated antibacterial activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853), showing a 24 mm inhibition zone in the agar disc diffusion method, where the disc was saturated with 1000 µg/mL of EPR in ethyl acetate. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of EPR against 20 clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa ranged from 128 to 1024 µg/mL, as determined by the broth microdilution assay. Stimulation of WI38 cells with 20 µg/mL lipopolysaccharide (LPS) led to ~3.08-fold increase± 0.03 in the gene expression of the proinflammatory cytokine, TNF-α, as determined by qRT-PCR, while EPR treatment of LPS-stimulated cells led to a significant reduction in the expression of TNF-α to only ~1.09-fold increase± 0.02 (p<0.0001), providing insights into possible anti-inflammatory activity. The EPR effect on wound healing process was investigated in vitro where EPR treatment significantly increased the wound closure percentage (66.64% ± 5.61 and 99.94% ± 0.05) compared to the control cells (13.79% ± 3.98 and 83.37% ± 0.05) as indicated at 24 and 48 hours post-wound induction, respectively. Further studies may be needed to characterize the bioactive compounds responsible for the above-mentioned biological activities, which may help explore alternative therapeutically active compounds.

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