Bangladesh Journal of Pharmacology Volume: 13; Number 1; Year 2018 Cite this article as: Abdullah S, Ling YS, Daim SJ, Alexander A, Chong KP. Ganoderma boninense isolated from Sabah, Malaysia exhibits potent antibacterial activity against clinically important bacterial pathogens. Bangladesh J Pharmacol. 2018; 13: 10-12. Ganoderma boninense isolated from Sabah, Malaysia exhibits potent antibacterial acti- vity against clinically important bacterial pathogens Sir, Ganoderma boninense is a white rot fungus, which mostly can be found in oil palm estates in Southeast Asia. It is an economically devastating pathogen causing major losses on oil palm’s profit. To date, numerous research have been done on G. boninense, but they are mainly focused on developing effective control tools in the form of chemicals or biological control agents (Alexander et al., 2017a), study on oil palm defence mechanism (Azura et al., 2016), the fungal pathogenesis (Alexander et al., 2017b), early detection (Alexander et al., 2014), and the molecular studies (Chong et al., 2011). Meanwhile, there are increasing number on other research field of G. boninense which include the study on the fungal metabolites (Alexander et al., 2014) and on pharmaceu- tical properties (Ismail et al., 2014; Ma et al., 2014). However, despite of all the works done on G. boninense, to date, there is no single report on the fungal antibac- terial activity against clinically important bacterial pathogens such as Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella enterica, and Streptococcus pyogenes that are increasingly contribute to nosocomial-caused infections. In the present work, we have isolated a fungal fruiting body (Figure 1A) compromising an oil palm tree in local oil palm plantation in Sabah, Malaysia. The fruiting body was cultured in our laboratory and molecularly identified according to the protocols described by Chong et al. (2011). Molecular analysis revealed that the A Journal of the Bangladesh Pharmacological Society (BDPS) Bangladesh J Pharmacol 2018; 13: 10-12 Journal homepage: www.banglajol.info Abstracted/indexed in Academic Search Complete, Agroforestry Abstracts, Asia Journals Online, Bangladesh Journals Online, Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, CAB Abstracts, Current Abstracts, Directory of Open Access Journals, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Global Health, Google Scholar, HINARI (WHO), International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, Open J-gate, Science Citation Index Expanded, SCOPUS and Social Sciences Citation Index ISSN: 1991-0088; DOI: 10.3329/bjp.v13i1.34139 Letter to the Editor This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to copy, distribute and perform the work. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor Figure 1: A) The fungal fruiting body obtained from oil palm tree; B) Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) analysis of the fungal fruit- ing body's DNA based on method described by Chong et al. (2011) shows that the PCR product is around 650 bp; C) Phylogenetic Tree analysis (using Basic Local Alignment Search Tool, BLAST, NCBI) of the fungal PCR product DNA sequence (highlighted in yellow) shows that the fungi identified as G. boninense species fungal fruiting body is belong to G. boninense species as shown in Figure 1B and Figure 1C. Remarkable anti- bacterial activity from the identified G. boninense extracts was observed against the standard and clinical bacterial isolates as summarized in Table I. Chloroform extract of G. boninense gives the broadest spectrum of antibacterial activity against both standard and clinical isolates of bacterial pathogens. For standard bacterial isolates, the greatest inhibition was observed on S. aureus, ATCC 25923 (11.3 ± 0.6 mm), followed by the inhibition on S. pyogenes, ATCC 19615 (9.7 ± 0.6 mm) and E. coli, ATCC 35218 (9.3 ± 0.6). The weakest activity was observed against K. pneumoniae, ATCC 1705 and P. aeruginosa, ATCC 9027 (7.0 ± 0.0 mm size of inhibition for both isolates). Meanwhile, for the clinical bacterial isolates, the greatest inhibition was observed on S. aureus (9.3 ± 0.6 mm size of inhibition) followed by S. pyogenes (8.7 ± 0.6 mm size of inhibition) and E. coli (7.7 ± 0.6 mm size of inhibition). No antibacterial activity was observed on water and hexane extracts of G. boninense against both the standard and clinical bacterial isolates, while two clinical bacterial isolates, K. pneumonia and P. aeruginosa were not susceptible to any of G. boninense extracts but to tetracycline. From this work, we found that the chloroform and methanol extracts of G. boninense by some par give broader spectrum of antibacterial activity against the tested bacterial pathogens compared to other extracts. This work also suggest that G. boninense might bearing potent antibacterial agent against important nosocomial infections-related bacterial pathogens, but right solvents system and extraction procedures are crucial to extract them out. One of Ganoderma species, G. lucidum is well known to exhibits potent medicinal potential including antibacterial activity (Iftekhar et al., 2011). This report confirmed that G. boninense, as wood decaying fungi like G. lucidum can also exhibit potent antibacterial potential. In-depth investigation is necessary to identify the responsible antibacterial compounds and the exact antibacterial mode of action against the selected bacterial pathogens. The authors acknowledge their profound gratitude to Ministry of Education Malaysia for financially supporting the research through Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRG0348), Faculty of Science and Natural Resources, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Biotechnology Research Institute of Universiti Malaysia Sabah for providing the facilities for research work. Syahriel Abdullah1, Yee Soon Ling2, Sylvia Jerome Daim3, Arnnyitte Alexander1, Khim Phin Chong1 1Biotechnology Programme, Faculty of Science and Natural resources, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Jalan UMS, 88400, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia; 2Biotechnology Research Institute, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Jalan UMS, 88400, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia; 3Microbiology and Pathobiology Department, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Jalan UMS, 88400, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. Corresponding author: email: chongkp@ums.edu.my; Tel.: +6088-320000 Ext 5655; Bangladesh J Pharmacol 2018; 13: 10-12 11 Table I Antibacterial activity of G. boninense extracts against clinical isolates of bacterial pathogens Strain† Zone of inhibition (mm) Aqueous extract# Methanol extract# Acetone extract# Chloroform extract# Hexane extract# Tetracycline 1 Not detected 7.7 ± 0.6cd 7.7 ± 0.6cd 9.3 ± 0.6fg Not detected 17.3 ± 1.5 2 Not detected Not detected Not detected 7.0 ± 0.0ab Not detected 15.7 ± 0.6 3 Not detected Not detected Not detected 7.0 ± 0.0ab Not detected 15.3 ± 0.6 4 Not detected 8.0 ± 0.0de 7.7 ± 0.6cd 11.3 ± 0.6i Not detected 23.7 ± 1.5 5 Not detected 7.7 ± 0.6cd Not detected 7.3 ± 0.6bc Not detected 17.3 ± 1.5 6 Not detected 7.7 ± 0.6cd 7.7 ± 0.6cd 9.7 ± 0.6gh Not detected 21.7 ± 1.5 7* Not detected 7.0 ± 0.0ab Not detected 7.7 ± 0.6cd Not detected 15.7 ± 1.6k 8* Not detected Not detected Not detected Not detected Not detected 11.3 ± 1.6fgi 9* Not detected Not detected Not detected Not detected Not detected 12.0 ± 1.6gij 10* Not detected 7.3 ± 0.6bc 7.7 ± 0.6cd 9.3 ± 0.6h Not detected 16.0 ± 1.6 11* Not detected 7.3 ± 0.6bc Not detected 7.3 ± 0.6cd Not detected 14.7 ± 1.6k 12* Not detected 7.3 ± 0.6bc 7.0 ± 0.0ab 8.7 ± 0.6fg Not detected 13.3 ± 0.6jk †Standard bacterial strains = 1) E. coli, ATCC 35218; 2) K. pneumoniae, ATCC 1705; 3) P. aeruginosa, ATCC 9027; 4) S. aureus, ATCC 25923; 5) S. Enterica, ATCC 14028, 6) S. pyogenes ATCC 19615, and *clinical bacterial isolates = 7) E. coli; 8) K. pneumoniae; 9) P. aeruginosa; 10) S. aureus; 11) S. Enterica; 12) S. pyogenes. #Extracts are in crude form; concentrations and the extracts amount loaded into the disc were standardized to 2 mg/mL and 100 µg respectively. Pure culture of the G. boninense fruiting body was obtained according to Chong et al. (2011). The amount loaded into each disc is 30 µg with concentration 1 mg/mL. ND= Antibacterial activity was not detected. None of the clinical bacterial isolates is Tetracycline resistant. The inhibition data are statistically different at p<0.05 unless stated with same letter References Alexander A, Abdullah S, Rossall S, Chong KP. Evaluation of the efficacy and mode of action of biological control for suppression of Ganoderma boninense in oil palm. Pakistan J Bot. 2017a; 49: 1193-99. Alexander A, Phin CK. 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