Rare Carbon-Bridged Citrinin Dimers from the Starfish-Derived Symbiotic Fungus Penicillium sp. GGF16-1-2.

Four novel, rare carbon-bridged citrinin dimers, namely dicitrinones G-J (1-4), and five known analogs (5-9) were isolated from the starfish-derived fungus Penicillium sp. GGF 16-1-2. Their structures were elucidated by extensive spectroscopic analysis and quantum chemical calculations. Compounds 1-9 exhibited strong antifungal activities against Colletotrichum gloeosporioides with LD50 values from 0.61 µg/mL to 16.14 µg/mL. Meanwhile, all compounds were evaluated for their cytotoxic activities against human pancreatic cancer BXPC-3 and PANC-1 cell lines; as a result, compound 1 showed more significant cytotoxicities than the positive control against both cell lines. In addition, based on the analyses of the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network and Western blot, 1 could induce apoptosis by activating caspase 3 proteins (CASP3).

γ-Aromatic Butenolides of Microbial Source - A Review of Their Structures, Biological Activities and Biosynthesis.

γ-Aromatic butenolides (γ-AB) are an important type of structures found in many bioactive microbial secondary metabolites (SMs). γ-AB refer to a group of natural products (NPs) containing five-membered (unsaturated) lactones with 3-phenyl and 4-benzyl substituents. Their wide-range biological activities have inspired pharmaceutical chemists to explore its biosynthesis mechanisms and design strategies to construct the γ-AB skeleton. Recently, there are a great deal of interesting research progress on the structures, biological activities and biosynthesis of γ-AB. This review will focus on these aspects and summarize the important achievements of γ-AB from 1975 to 2021.