Abstract Nigeria’s rich plant biodiversity play host to endophytic fungal populations that possess enormous potentials as sources of novel bioactive molecules. This study was aimed at investigating the metabolites of an endophytic fungus isolated from Chromolaena odorata, a weedy plant commonly found in Nigeria, for antimicrobial and antioxidant activities and also identifying some of its constituents. An endophytic fungus was isolated from C. odorata and fermentation extract of the fungus was tested for antimicrobial and antioxidant activities using the agar diffusion and DPPH assay methods respectively. Some of the bioactive components of the endophytic fungal extract were identified using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The fungal extract at 1 mg/mL showed only antibacterial activity with inhibition zone diameters of 2, 2, and 6 mm produced against S. aureus, B. subtilis, and S. typhi respectively. Also, at 100 ug/mL, the fungal extract showed average antioxidant activity with an inhibition of 46%. HPLC analysis of the extract suggested the presence of indole-3-acetic acid and acropyrone which may be responsible for the biological activities exhibited by the fungal extract. The results of this study showed that the endophytic fungus isolated from leaves of C. odorata produced secondary metabolites with antimicrobial and antioxidant properties. This implies that endophytic fungi associated with leaves of C. odorata could be a promising source of biologically active compounds.
Keyword: Chromolaena odorata, endophytes, HPLC analysis, secondary metabolites, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities.