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Passiflora setacea DC. growing is of interest to the herbal industries since in its leaves are produced secondary metabolites that confer antioxidant, anxiolytic, and antidepressant properties in Passiflora. Therefore, it is important to search for sustainable alternatives that aim to enhance the production of these compounds to add value to the phytomass, such as the inoculation with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and the application of coconut coir dust, which has not been reported to P. setacea yet. The aim was to select the efficient combination of AMF and coconut coir dust to increase the compounds' production and optimize the antioxidant activity in P. setacea leaves. The P. setacea seedlings that were cultivated in substrates without coconut coir dust and colonized by Gigaspora albida N.C. Schenck & G.S. Sm. produced more total saponins (1,707.43%), total tannins (469.98%), and total phenols (85.81%), in comparison to the non-mycorrhizal plants, in addition to enhancing the glomalin-related soil proteins. On the other hand, in general, the use of coir dust as a substrate has not been shown to increase the production of these bioactive compounds. It is concluded that the production of P. setacea seedlings using G. albida is an alternative to offer phytomass to the herbal medicines industry based on passion fruit., (© 2022. The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Sociedade Brasileira de Microbiologia.)

Elucidation of the distinctive microbial taxonomic profiles of tropical fruit peels is the indispensable component of investigations aimed at the detection of microorganisms responsible for the post-harvest loss. The objective of the present work was to dissect the bacterial and fungal community of five tropical fruit peels (banana, guava, mango, papaya, and passion fruit) in wild (non-cultivated) and conventionally produced samples from Brazil. To that end, 16S rRNA-encoding gene and ITS rDNA amplicon analysis of the five tropical fruit peels were performed to discriminate the bacterial and fungal communities, respectively. The result showed that bacterial communities of the five types of fruit peels were by far more diversified than that of fungal communities, independent of the type of production system involved. Among the investigated fruits, non-cultivated papaya peels hosted the most diversified bacterial community while the least bacterial community diversity was found in the conventionally produced papaya fruit peels. The gene amplicon analysis clearly discriminated the bacterial community into their respective classes, while fungal communities were better classified in their phyla, yet with clearer component discrimination of fungal community based on the type of cultivation system practiced. Conventionally produced banana and non-cultivated passion fruit peels were characteristically dominated by fungal and bacterial groups, respectively. Overall, in conventionally produced fruit peels, bacterial community was mainly composed of Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Bacilli. The result provided a broad microbial diversity profile that could be used as an important input for seeking alternative fruit spoilage control and post-harvest treatments.