Antifungal and antibacterial activities of eugenol and non-polar extract of Syzygium aromaticum L.

The antimicrobial activity of eugenol and the non-polar extract from cloves (Syzygium aromaticum), was tested against the Staphylococcus aureus strain resistant to cefotaxime, Escherichia coli and Candida albicans using the disc diffusion antibiotic sensitivity technique. Soxhlet extraction was performed to separate the essential oil and GCMS method was used to identify the eugenol which is the main component of the clove essential oil. The measured growth inhibition zones showed significant activity against the 3 microbes. To conclude, eugenol is the major active ingredient of the clove essential oil extract

Screening fungal endophytes derived from under-explored Egyptian marine habitats for antimicrobial and antioxidant properties in factionalised textiles

Marine endophytic fungi from under-explored locations are a promising source for the discovery of new bioactivities. Different endophytic fungi were isolated from plants and marine organisms collected from Wadi El-Natrun saline lakes and the Red Sea near Hurghada, Egypt. The isolated strains were grown on three different media, and their ethyl acetate crude extracts were evaluated for their antimicrobial activity against a panel of pathogenic bacteria and fungi as well as their antioxidant properties. Results showed that most of the 32 fungal isolates initially obtained possessed antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. The most potent antimicrobial extracts were applied to three different cellulose containing fabrics to add new multifunctional properties such as ultraviolet protection and antimicrobial functionality. For textile safety, the toxicity profile of the selected fungal extract was evaluated on human fibroblasts. The 21 strains displaying bioactivity were identified on molecular basis and selected for chemical screening and dereplication, which was carried out by analysis of the MS/MS data using the Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking (GNPS) platform. The obtained molecular network revealed molecular families of compounds commonly produced by fungal strains, and in combination with manual dereplication, further previously reported metabolites were identified as well as potentially new derivatives

Biosynthesis of azaphilones: a review

International audienceAzaphilones are fungal polyketide pigments bearing a highly oxygenated pyranoquinone bicyclic core which receive an increasing great deal of research interest for their applications on agroalimentary, dyeing, cosmetic, printing and pharmacy industries. Their biosynthetic pathways are not fully elucidated but thanks to recent genomic approaches combined to the increasing genome sequencing of fungi some of them have been recently unveiled. Here is the first review on the biosynthesis of azaphilonoids adressed from a genomic point of view

CANPA: Computer-Assisted Natural Products Anticipation

Traditional natural products discovery workflows implying a combination of different targeting strategies including structure- and/or bioactivity-based approaches, afford no information about new compound structure until late in the discovery pipeline. By integrating a MS/MS prediction module and a collaborative library of (bio)chemical transformations, we have developed a new platform, coined MetWork, that is able of anticipating the structural identity of metabolites starting from any identified compound. In our quest to discover new monoterpene indole alkaloids, we demonstrate the utility of the MetWork platform by anticipating the structures of five previously undescribed sarpagine-like N-oxide alkaloids that have been targeted and isolated from the leaves of Alstonia balansae using a molecular networking-based dereplication strategy fueled by computer-generated annotations. This study constitutes the first example of non peptidic molecular networking-based natural product discovery workflow, in which the targeted structures were initially generated, and therefore anticipated by a computer prior to their isolation.</p

Azaphilones Pigments from the Fungus Penicillium hirayamae

The use of fungal pigments as dyes is attractive for various industries. Fungal pigments arise a strong interest because they are suitable for large-scale industrial production and have none of the drawbacks of synthetic pigments. Their advantages over synthetic or vegetal dyes mark them as a prime target. Azaphilones are fungal polyketides pigments bearing a highly oxygenated pyranoquinone bicyclic core produced by numerous species of ascomyceteous and basidiomyceteous fungi. In order to find new azaphilones dyes, the fungal strain Penicillium hirayamae U., a known producer of azaphilone but, chemically, barely studied so far, was investigated by molecular networking and led to the isolation of three new azaphilones, penazaphilone J-L, along with the known penazaphilone D, isochromophilone VI, and sclerketide E. Their structures were determined based on extensive NMR and the absolute configurations by ECD. All compounds were evaluated for their cytotoxic activity against human cell lines and human pathogenic-resistant strains