Abstract
Elephantorrhiza elephantina
, a wild plant in southern Africa, is utilized in traditional medicine for various ailments, leading to its endangerment and listing on the Red List of South African Plants. To date, there have been no reports on bacterial endophytes from this plant, their classes of secondary metabolites, and potential medicinal properties. This study presents (i) taxonomic characterization of bacterial endophytes in leaf and root tissues using 16S rRNA, (ii) bacterial isolation, morphological, and phylogenetic characterization, (iii) bacterial growth, metabolite extraction, and LC–MS-based metabolite fingerprinting, and (iv) antimicrobial testing of bacterial crude extracts. Next-generation sequencing yielded 693 and 2,459 DNA read counts for the rhizomes and leaves, respectively, detecting phyla including Proteobacteria, Bacteroidota, Gemmatimonadota, Actinobacteriota, Verrucomicrobiota, Dependentiae, Firmicutes, and Armatimonodata. At the genus level,
Novosphingobium
,
Mesorhizobium
,
Methylobacterium
, and Ralstonia were the most dominant in both leaves and rhizomes. From root tissues, four bacterial isolates were selected, and 16S rRNA-based phylogenetic characterization identified two closely related
Pseudomonas
sp. (strain BNWU4 and 5),
Microbacterium oxydans
BNWU2, and
Stenotrophomonas maltophilia
BNWU1. The ethyl acetate:chloroform (1:1 v/v) organic extract from each isolate exhibited antimicrobial activity against all selected bacterial pathogens. Strain BNWU5 displayed the highest activity, with minimum inhibitory concentrations ranging from 62.5 μg/mL to 250 μg/mL against diarrhoeagenic
Escherichia coli
,
Escherichia coli O157:H7
,
Salmonella enterica
, antibiotic-resistant
Vibrio cholerae
,
Staphylococcus aureus
,
Bacillus cereus
, and
Enterococcus durans
. LC–MS analysis of the crude extract revealed common antimicrobial metabolites produced by all isolates, including Phenoxomethylpenicilloyl (penicilloyl V), cis-11-Eicosenamide, 3-Hydroxy-3-phenacyloxindole, and 9-Octadecenamide.