Introduction
Natural products play a major role in the discovery of leads for the development of drugs in
the treatment of human diseases. Natural products are an unsurpassed source of bioactive
compounds and constitute a relevant economic resource for the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food
industry. Medicinal plants provide a unique environment for endophytes and have been recognized
as a repository of endophytes with novel metabolites of pharmaceutical importance (Tan & Zou,
2001, Strobel et al. 2004). Medicinal plants and their endophytes are important resources for
discovery of natural products. Endophytes are important components of microbial diversity.
Endophytes are group of microorganism that resides asymptomatically inside the living plant
tissues. Endophytic fungi represent an important and quantifiable component of fungal diversity,
and are known to affect plant community diversity and structure (Krings et al. 2007). Endophytic
fungi isolated from medicinal plants more likely exhibit pharmaceutical potentials. Plant
endophytic fungi have been found in each plant species examined, and it is estimated that there are
over one million fungal endophytes existed in the nature (Petrini 1991). Endophytes provide a wide