Evaluation of the antimicrobial activity, sub-chronic toxicity and wound healing effect of Cunninghamella elegans extract and Its isolated Compounds

Aim: Evaluation of the in-vitro antimicrobial and in-vivo wound healing activities of the total alcohol extract and isolated compounds from Cunninghamella elegans (C. elegans). Methods: Different G-ve and G+ve bacteria were used in the antimicrobial study, and the excision wound model in guinea pigs was used. Identification of compounds was done using different spectroscopic methods. Results and Conclusion: C. elegans total extract, ethyl acetate and ether successive extracts showed high activity against Staphylococcus aureus. Three fatty acids were isolated and identified as Palmitic acid 1, Oleic acid 2 and Stearic acid 3in addition to seven compounds; a-amyrin 4.p-sitosterol 5, 2- (6-amino-9H-purin-9-yl) - 5- (hydroxymethyl) oxolane- 3, 4- diol (adenosine) 6, Uridine (pyrimidine 2,4-dione,1-ribose) 7, Pyrimidine-2, 4-dione (Uracil) 8, 3,4,5-trihydroxy-benzoic acid (Gallic acid) 9, and 3-(methoxycarbonyl) but-3-enoic acid 10 were isolated from C. elegans extract. Among these compounds, adenosine was the most active antimicrobial compound in-vitro against Staphylococcus aureus. The topical application of the ethanol extract of C. elegans (5 mg mL^-1) and adenosine (1 mg mL^-1) produced complete wound healing activity in experimentally infected guinea pigs after 18 days. The total ethanol extract of the investigated fungus was safe up to 5000 mg kg-¹ and did not produce any significant change in liver and kidney functions after oral administration (200 mg kg-¹) for 35 consecutive days.