Medicinal potentialities and pathogenic profile of Lasiodiplodia genus.

Considering that current biotechnological advances have been contributing towards improving the well-being of humanity, endophytic fungi, such as Lasiodiplodia, are promising sources of new substances to be used in chemical, pharmaceutical and agrochemical processes. Bioactive secondary metabolites are examples of such substances, although it is widely known that Lasiodiplodia inflicts irreparable damage to several crops of major economic importance. They are often produced as a response against biotic and abiotic factors, thus revealing that they play different roles, such as in signaling and defense mechanisms. Therefore, this review presents a few subtle differences between pathogenicity and mutualistic endophyte-host interactions. Moreover, the main secondary metabolites produced by Lasiodiplodia endophytes have been described with respect to their relevant antimicrobial and cytotoxic activities.

Endophytic fungi isolated from medicinal plants: future prospects of bioactive natural products from Tabebuia/Handroanthus endophytes.

Medicinal plants are a rich source of natural products used to treat many diseases; therefore, they are the basis for a new drug discovery. Plants are capable of generating different bioactive secondary metabolites, but a large amount of botanical material is often necessary to obtain small amounts of the target substance. Nowadays, many medicinal plants are becoming rather scarce. For this reason, it is important to point out the interactions between endophytic microorganisms and the host plant, because endophytes are able to produce highly diverse compounds, including those from host plants that have important biological activities. Thence, this review aims at presenting the richness in bioactive compounds of the medicinal plants from Tabebuia and Handroanthus genera, as well as important aspects about endophyte-plant interactions, with emphasis on the production of bioactive compounds by endophytic fungi, which has been isolated from various medicinal plants for such a purpose. Furthermore, bio-prospection of natural products synthesized by endophytes isolated from the aforementioned genera used in traditional medicine could be used to treat illnesses.

[Isolation of a strain from the Bataviae pathogenic complex in patient vaccinated against copenhageni, canicola and mozdok]. / Aislamiento de cepa del complejo patógeno Bataviae en paciente vacunado contra copenhageni, canicola y mozdok.

A Leptospira strain was isolated from a hemoculture of a patient admitted with suspicion of leptospirosis that had been previously vaccinated. It corresponded to the Bataviae pathogenic complex. This result shows that there exists immunogenic specificity and that other serogroups should be incorporated to the current vaccine.