Wang et al. 2021

Discovery of Cymopolyphenols A–F from a marine mesophotic zone Aaptos sponge-associated fungus Cymostachys sp. NBUF082

Wang T, Zhou J, Zou J, Shi Y, Zhou W, Shao P, Yu T, Cui W, Li X, Wu X, Ye J

scientific article Front Microbiol
Abstract

Mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) have complex but understudied biodiversity, especially for natural products discovery. Untargeted metabolomics research on 80 extracts prepared from marine sponge-associated fungi, half from shallow reefs (<30 m) and half from MCEs (30–150 m), facilitated prioritization for further study a Cymostachys fungus from a 103 m deep Aaptos sponge. LC-MS target-directed isolation yielded a series of new compounds, cymopolyphenols A−F (1–6), and two known phenylspirodrimanes, F1839-I (7) and stachybotrylactone (8). This is the first report of natural products from the recently described genus, Cymostachys. Compounds 1–6 and 8 contain a dihydroisobenzofuran moiety, and 4–6 are low-order polymers of 1 with novel scaffolds. The structures of the compounds were established by spectroscopic and spectrometric data interpretation, with further support from X-ray crystallography studies of 3 and 4. Compound 3 undergoes facile racemization in solution and was found to crystalize as a racemic mixture. Compound 5 was also obtained in racemic form, and after chiral chromatography, both separated enantiomers racemized in solution by a presumed keto-enol tautomerization. Compounds 1 and 3–6 were found to be weakly antimicrobial (MIC 16–64 μg/ml) in vitro against several Gram-positive and Gram-negative human or aquatic pathogens, compound 5 was shown to chelate iron in vitro at 10 μM, and 8 activated plant disease resistance in vivo in a transgenic model organism.

Keywords
Metadata (pending validation)
Depth Range
7–103 m
Mesophotic Mentions
26 × (total of 7924 words)
Classification
  • Presents original data
  • Focused on 'mesophotic' depth range
  • Focused on 'mesophotic coral ecosystem'
Locations
Philippines