RESUMO
Tropical forests represent one of the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth. High productivity is sustained by efficient and rapid cycling of nutrients, which is in large part made possible by symbiotic associations between plants and mycorrhizal fungi. In these associations, an individual plant typically associates simultaneously with multiple fungi and the fungi associate with multiple plants, creating complex networks among fungi and plants. However, there are few studies that have investigated mycorrhizal fungal composition and diversity in tropical forest trees, particularly in Africa, or that assessed the structure of the network of associations among fungi and trees. In this study, we collected root and soil samples from Ise Forest Reserve (Southwest Nigeria) and used a metabarcoding approach to identify the dominant arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal taxa in the soil and associating with ten co-occurring tree species to assess variation in AM communities. Network analysis was used to elucidate the architecture of the network of associations between fungi and tree species. A total of 194 Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) belonging to six AM fungal families were identified, with 68% of all OTUs belonging to Glomeraceae. While AM fungal diversity did not differ among tree species, AM fungal community composition did. Network analyses showed that the network of associations was not significantly nested and showed a relatively low level of specialization (H2 = 0.43) and modularity (M = 0.44). We conclude that, although there were some differences in AM fungal community composition, the studied tree species associate with a large number of AM fungi. Similarly, most AM fungi had great host breadth and were detected in most tree species, thereby potentially working as interaction network hubs.
RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Reports have implicated diabetes mellitus (DM) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) as some of the global persistent health challenges with no lasting solutions, despite of significant inputs of modern-day pharmaceutical firms. This study therefore, aimed to appraise the in vitro antioxidant potential, enzymes inhibitory activities, and as well carry out in silico study on bioactive compounds from polyphenolic-rich extract of Hibiscus cannabinus seed (PEHc). METHODS: In vitro antioxidant assays were performed on PEHc using standard methods while the identification of phytoconstituents was carried out with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). For the in silico molecular docking using Schrodinger's Grid-based ligand docking with energetics software, seven target proteins were retrieved from the database ( https://www.rcsb.org/ ). RESULTS: HPLC technique identified twelve chemical compounds in PEHc, while antioxidant quantification revealed higher total phenolic contents (243.5 ± 0.71 mg GAE/g) than total flavonoid contents (54.06 ± 0.09 mg QE/g) with a significant (p < 0.05) inhibition of ABTS (IC50 = 218.30 ± 0.87 µg/ml) and 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl free radicals (IC50 = 227.79 ± 0.74 µg/ml). In a similar manner, the extract demonstrated a significant (p < 0.05) inhibitory activity against α-amylase (IC50 = 256.88 ± 6.15 µg/ml) and α-glucosidase (IC50 = 183.19 ± 0.23 µg/ml) as well as acetylcholinesterase (IC50 = 262.95 ± 1.47 µg/ml) and butyrylcholinesterase (IC50 = 189.97 ± 0.82 µg/ml), respectively. Furthermore, In silico study showed that hibiscetin (a lead) revealed a very strong binding affinity energies for DPP-4, (PDB ID: 1RWQ) and α-amylase (PDB ID: 1SMD), gamma-tocopherol ( for peptide-1 receptor; PDB ID: 3C59, AChE; PDB ID: 4EY7 and BChE; PDB ID: 7B04), cianidanol for α-glucosidase; PDB ID: 7KBJ and kaempferol for Poly [ADP-ribose] polymerase 1 (PARP-1); PDB ID: 6BHV, respectively. More so, ADMET scores revealed drug-like potentials of the lead compounds identified in PEHc. CONCLUSION: As a result, the findings of this study point to potential drug-able compounds in PEHc that could be useful for the management of DM and AD.
