Bioactivities and in silico study of Pergularia tomentosa L. phytochemicals as potent antimicrobial agents targeting type IIA topoisomerase, TyrRS, and Sap1 virulence proteins

Pergularia tomentosa L. (P. tomentosa) has been largely used in Tunisian folk medicine as remedies against skin diseases, asthma, and bronchitis. The main objectives of this study were to identify phytochemical compounds that have antioxidant and antimicrobial properties from the stem, leaves, and fruit crude methanolic extracts of P. tomentosa, and to search for tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase (TyrRS), topoisomerase type IIA, and Candidapepsin-1 (SAP1) enzyme inhibitors through molecular docking study. Phytochemical quantification revealed that fruit and leaves extracts displayed the highest total flavonoids (582 mg QE/g Ex; 219 mg QE/g Ex) and tannins content (375 mg TAE/g Ex; 216 mg TAE/g Ex), also exhibiting significant scavenging activity to decrease free radicals for ABTS, DPPH, β-carotene, and FRAP assay with IC